SAINDHAVA’S DEATH

 

DR PREMA NANDAKUMAR

 

            (‘Saindhava’ or the Sindhu King was Jayadratha, son of Vriddhakshatra. Jayadratha played a crucial role in encompassing the brutal killing of Abhimanyu, Arjuna’s son. Arjuna therefore vowed he would kill Jayadratha before the next nightfall. At the end of a day of fluctuating fortunes, Jayadratha’s severed head, fell on Vriddhakshatra’s lap as he was sitting in tapas. When he got up, the lifeless head fell on the ground, and Vriddhakshatra’s head burst into fragments fulfilling his own curse.

 

            The chief figures in the Mahabharata are like apocalyptic visions, and the old tragedies are being enacted over and over again. The great epic is still the subject of discourses in our Temple Halls, and attracts numerous listeners day after day.)

 

            What sudden spite impelled you

            To circumscribe the Pandava Prince?

            Didn’t you know that your own death

            Began with your earliest breath?

           

            Even today aeons later

            Your death seems the climactic moment

            In Bharat’s ancient tale of carnage.

            Old men and old women sit awhile

            Mute and motionless in the Hall

            Witnessing your death again

            And the fruition of your father’s curse.

 

            Waiting patiently for death by ripeness.

            The old sadly re-enact your bloody end.

 

            Vriddhakshatra, fondest of fathers,

            Ordained your future Enemy’s death.

            What price the pride of power?

            Your great adversary Arjuna’s head,

            Did it burst into a thousand shreds?

            The curse of the hidden avenger,

            Does it rebound from or reach the goal?

 

            And yet and yet–in a way sinister,

            Vriddhakshatra’s curse came true.

 

            Arjuna’s heart smithereened

            A day before Jayadratha’s head

            Ablaze with its goried locks

            Caused Vriddhakshatra’s head

            To boomerang in blood.

 

            Where did all this lead to–

            This plus and minus

            Followed by many an excruciating

            Minus and plus?

 

            Could Bhurisravas and Salya,

            Kambhoja, Vrishasena and Purumitra,

            Vivimsati, Jaya and Sakuni

            Help you, valorous Jayadratha?

            What price your murky dance

            On Abhimanyu’s stained bright body?

 

            Nor yet could great Satyaki,

            Bhima and Dhrishtadhyumna

            Save Subhadra’s valiant son.

            Blood spilled more blood and blood,

            For the first spurt had gushed

            Signalled by a hated curse.

 

            Woman’s blood steadily pools

            To fill a glorious birth,

            But man’s spread of vermilion stain

            Records only the blight of day.

 

            Mighty Jayadratha drawn to war

            Paid a double price falling dead

            On his self-absorbed father’s lap.

            Life zig-zags a caterpillar curve

            Of beginnings and endings without end.

 

            Could it all have been avoided–

            Could it be avoided still?

            Those million deaths around the world–

            The push-button megadeaths to come!

 

            The vanished cottages

            The burning cities

            Scorched earth, rape, rapine:

            Words, words, words,

            Weeds, weeds, weeds,

            Wormwood, wormwood:

            Cunning and camouflage

            Rage and ruthless spite

            Rain blood and tears.

            Self-driven self-deluded

            Rode doomed Jayadratha:

            Death came to him

            And he carried death.

 

            The grass is not greener today

            Nor blood redder nor passion fiercer.

            Jayadrathas still stalk the land

            Hemming in innocent children

            In examination or extermination camps.

            Vriddhakshatras mutter their curses

            A million times over.

            Injured Arjunas seek immitigable vengeance

            For dear blood shed by the tiger-clawed clan.

            And Counsellors are not lacking,

            And the courses of curses may be diverted,

            And the biter may be bit and the killer killed,

            And flawed red wine flows on in a flood.

 

            Are we doomed in this haunted nightmare world

            To spin round this circuit chain-reaction?

            And fabled spectral Kurukshetra

            Many times lives and dies again

            In this hoary Land of Dharma

            This seagreen expanse of terror and pain

            Playing roles of fatality.

            No way to live or love or make good

            But kill kill kill with the concealed bomb

            Or dart a poisoned arrow

            Or crush with the backyard pestle

            Or beat with a rusted pipe

            Or give a thug’s infernal hug.

 

            Is there no way out of this wheel of hate?

            Is there no cure for jealous rage?

            Is there no answer to kill kill kill?

 

            Shall we not somehow outgrow fear?

            Shall we not learn the lesson of love?

            Shall we not invoke the grace of Grace?

 

            Is death in Padmavyuha,

            East Pakistan, Cambodia,

            Bhivandi, Sharpville,

            On the Israel-Lebanese frontier,

            Or right on the road to HEC–

            Is cold-blooded brutality or genocide

            The only and final answer?

 

            Helpless like Yudhishtiras

            The old men and old women

            Await the outcome in the Temple Hall

            Listening to the Pundit retailing

            The tale of Vriddhakshatra’s curse,

            Jayadratha’s calculated encirclement

            Of the wonder-lad Abhimanyu,

            His untimely end, his father’s grief,

            The anodyne and the terrible oath,

            And the cornering and slaying of Jayadratha,

            And the self-doom of Vriddhakshatra.

 

            Are we to be caught forever thus

            Between a saintly Saindhava’s curse

            And a heroic Saindhava’s spite?

            Is there no end to this night?

 

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