THE BURDEN OF LIFE

By Ketaki

(On the banks of the Ganga)

SANTANU: Strange indeed! The river has, all on a sudden, stopped her tumultuous rush and is heaving in anger, like frustrated desire. Methinks she will brim her banks and overflow. What strange sight is this!

[Enter GANGA]

Ganga! Is it true? Can it be possible? Have you forgiven me? Have you, then, come back to me?

GANGA: Yes, and no. I have come to give you your son. Do you see how the river is being held up?

S: I do. That is the amazing sight that is holding me spellbound. What divine power is it?

G: It is the sport of our son. With his two arms he holds back the mad rush of the river.

S: Our son!

G: Yes, my Lord. You remember how, when my last child was born, I was carrying it to the river and you forbade me?

S: Can I ever forget the foolishness of it? Fool, fool that I was. Could I not be patient? Can you not forget that one incident and come to me, my Beloved?

G: No. That is all in the Past. I cannot come back. But my son is ordained by the Fates to live his life on this sinful Earth. He cannot be free for a long time to come. He is Devavrata. Here he comes. My child, come here.

DEVAVRATA: Mother, mother, I held up the river. Again I was able to do it.

G: (smiling) Child, this is your father. Salute him. The time has come when you should leave me and go to Hastinavati and be the Yuvaraja of the Kingdom.

S: Come, my son. Ganga, where was he all these days?

G: My Lord, Gangeya was a student of Vasishta, He has learnt from him the Vedas and the Vedangas. Sukra and Brihaspati have taught him the secrets of political science. Bhagavan Bhargava himself, at my request, has taught him, a Kshatriya, all the secrets of the great science, Archery. My Devavrata is unmatched in the knowledge of Dharmasastra, I present this Hero to you, Take him to the Home of Heroes.

Some years later. SATYAVATI and BHEESHMA

S: What made you take on yourself such a terrible punishment? You loved your father, I know. But this! How could you make that vow?

B: Mother, you know Ganga brought me up for a long time and then made a gift of me to King Santanu. He was ever thinking of my mother, and was so very good to me. He was both a father and a mother to me. If I wanted anything I had only to think. The King was even quicker than thought in satisfying my desire. On a sudden, such a loving father looked sad and unhappy. Try as I might, I could not get him to talk. He looked so pale and ill, I begged him, beseeched him, but all to no purpose. Then, his aged minister told me about you. How my Lord was in the forest one day: how by chance he looked on you and was smitten with love for you: and how your father refused to give you in marriage to my father.

S: I remember the incident. Your father was drawn to me by the strange perfume that is part of me. He came near. I was returning from the banks of the Yamuna after tying up the boat. I saw your father. It was late in the evening. The Sun had just set, and methought the Moon himself had come down to the Earth. Your father was so beautiful, so divine-looking. I was overcome with shyness. He came near and spoke to me in a sweet voice. I told him I was Satyavati, the fisherman’s daughter. He wanted me. He said he loved me. He wanted to take me back with him. But I demurred. He should ask my father, I said. He threw back his head and laughed. He said: “Your father? But surely! Who will refuse to let his daughter sit on the throne of the Pauravas?” So saying, he asked me to lead him to my father. I did. You know what happened then.

B: Yes. The minister told me. My father, the King, asked the fisherman for his daughter’s hand, and he refused! “Unless the son born of Satyavati is made the Yuvaraja of Hastinavati, I cannot agree to your proposal.” My poor father was taken aback. He thought of me and without speaking a word, got into his chariot and returned to the city. Since then he lost interest in everything, even in his favourite game, hunting. I noticed it and asked him the reason. He was so wry ambiguous in his reply. He said: “You are an only son. You are a worthy son: you are a heroic son. There is no doubt about it. But you are an only son. Having an only son is but slightly different from having no son. That is what is troubling my mind.” It was this remark of his that set me thinking and I went to his minister for help. He, after much hesitation and misgiving, gave me the whole story and the cause of the King’s depression. Loving my father as I did, I had to make him happy. So, I came to you.

S: Yes, you came. I first thought it was the King himself. You called out to my father in your swan-like voice and chid him since he hesitated even when the Lord of the Pauravas wanted his daughter. My father stated his conditions. You smiled and said: “So be it. Do you think the Throne means anything to me when my father’s happiness is at stake? I renounce my right to the Throne. Are you satisfied?” My avaricious father was not satisfied. He said: “You in your nobleness of heart, have renounced the Throne. But your sons may not be so selfless.” I can still see the impatient and scornful frown flitting across your noble brow. “Well, then, I will not marry. Are you sure now? Satisfied? I vow before the Sun and the Moon and the lords of the heavens, before all the denizens of Heaven, Earth and the nether world, in the name of my Righteousness, my Dharma, in the name of my Bhagavan Bhargava, in the name of my blessed mother, Ganga Devi, that I will not marry as long as I live.”

B: Yes, I said that. And I have never once regretted it. My father, on hearing that I had suddenly made a journey to the forest, was worried and rushed to stop me from doing anything rash. But when his chariot gleamed in the distance, caught in the golden noose of the setting Sun, my Vow was irrevocably made.

S: When King Santanu arrived on the scene, the gods were showering flowers on you; the sky was resounding with the cry: Bheeshma! Bheeshma! So terrible was your Vow.

B: My father was distressed; and happy too. He granted me a boon. I can hold Death at arm’s length. Death has to wait for my favour and enter only when I grant audience. What a unique privilege!

S: What a unique Sacrifice! Devavrata, you are a Child of Fate. Your youth and happiness blighted by the selfish love of a King, truly the descendant of Yayati, your later life will be filled with sorrow and pain because of me, whom you call ‘Mother’.

B: Because of you, my mother? But I do not understand!

S: No, you do not! Then look, look, I beseech you. My sons, Chitrangada and Vichitraveerya are dead. Dhritarashtra and Pandu have given birth to children whose rivalry, even now, brings pain to my heart. My mind is filled with strange and grim forebodings. The future of the Bharatas looks dark and full of blood.

B: Yes, mother. Everything was peaceful in Hastinavati until Kunti Devi and her five sons, like an Arani with five flames leaping out of it, entered our city. Something tells me, dread Fire of Destruction has entered our House. But, mother, why should I be worried? I can die when I please! The fire and flame consuming the Kuru House and Clan cannot touch me. I will be among the snow-clad peaks, the Home of my Lord Shankara.

S: You shall not. I place on your shoulders the Burden of Life. You shall live until the Kuru family is established on the Earth. You vindicate the cause of Right and Truth and then, and only then, have you the right to die.

B: Woe is me! What was once a boon to me, has changed its form now, and sits on my bent shoulders like a dreadful curse. Why this unkindness from you, mother? Have I not been a good son to you? Why then, this ungrateful wish?

S: You have, indeed, been a good son. But know you not that the best of women becomes a tigress when her step-son is concerned? I loved you when my sons were alive. But when they died, and you refused to take their wives when I commanded you, I ceased to love you.

B: But mother, be reasonable. You forgot the Vow.

S: I know. But no woman is reasonable. My desire was to see a true Paurava on the Throne. Remember, they were, in a way, your brides. You brought them from the Swayamvara by force.

B: Poor Amba tried in vain to convince me.

S: Yes, poor ill-starred Amba. She has cursed you, too, and sworn to wreak vengeance on you. You are an unfortunate victim of the curses of two women. You must live, live, when you will want peace, ache for it, pine for it, long for it. Peace will be denied to you. You must suffer the sight of your grandchildren destroying each other. But do not grieve. Your name will be handed down to posterity as the greatest man that ever lived. Your fame will last as long as the Sun and Moon move in their appointed orbits.

B: Mother, I shall do as you command me. I have never loved this life of mine: nor have I hated it. Ever since the coming of Amba into my life, I have realised how pain-filled life can be, how ruthless it can be. I will live, then, my life: live it well, how long or short, is left to the gods who set me about this strange journey.

S: Now I can go in peace to the forest. Dwaipayana told me that happy days are over and fearful days have come: that every tomorrow is laden with Sin: that the Earth is well past her youth. I am going to the forest. Remember my wishes.

B: Can one dare forget the dreadful future? The times are bad. O Fate! That I should be the man to bear the burden!...But so be it. Mother, go in peace. I have no ill-feeling towards you.

Exit SATYAVATI

Ganga, O mother mine, why did you not throw me into the river along with the rest of them? Why did you spare me? For this? For this?

Enter GANGA

G: What ails thee, my child?

B: Mother, O mother, why am I made to go through all this suffering? Why did you leave me alive in this world of Sin, mother?

G: My child, I am sorry for you. My heart bleeds for you. But you have to pass through this painful life. You are one of the Vasus who has been cursed to spend some years in this world of men. So, while you live make your life so filled with greatness that men in aftertimes will be thrilled on hearing your name. You will live in this world like the water-drop cradled in a lotus leaf: like a rain-drop trembling on the edge of the Kimsuka leaf. You will not be born again in this pain-filled world. You will be acclaimed by posterity as the most righteous of men.

B: Righteous? It was because I was righteous that two flower-like women have pronounced dread curses on me. Amba! Mother, why should Amba have come into my life?

G: The web once woven, we cannot unweave. She will pass in and out of the threads of your life.

B: I had conformed my life to a rigid pattern made of black and white, right and wrong. But Amba, beautiful Amba with her tear-filled eyes full of love and reproach, has become a thread of passionate red, shuttling in and out, causing havoc in the even woof of my life. Why should my heart ache at the thought of her?

G: Fate, my child. I brought you up to be a great prince, a greater King–a worthy son of the puissant Kuru House. But Fate willed it otherwise. Do you remember how you once took pleasure in holding up the river, checking the wild, mad rush of the passion-filled waves?

B: I see what you mean. Even so, I must stem the tide of my emotions and feelings and “hold up the river.” But if the river burst its banks?

G: It must not. A lesser man may admit defeat: but not you. Not my Gangeya. Not Bheeshma. A son of Santanu can afford to be weak, but not my son.

B: I understand. My life from now on will be one long penance, one long preparation for Death, a time of probation for the Eternity of God.

G: Even so. Now look, I will plan out your immediate action. Do you know anything of Drona?

B: He learnt archery from my Master. I know no more of him.

G: Listen. He has a son called Aswathama. With him Drona went to the court of Drupada and asked a favour of him. Drupada, in his insolence, refused. Full of pain and hurt, with the insult rankling his bosom, Drona has come to Hastina. Your grand-children have already met him. He is now in Kripa’s house. Send for him: receive with great honours and beg him to take charge of the boys. They become the Heroes of Bharata.

B: Heroes? Then what is to happen, mother? in a few years?

G: In another few years the young plant called Jealousy which has now sprung to life in the heart of Suyodhana will take deeper root. Watered by Ambition, nurtured by evil mentors, the plant will lean on them and grow into a mighty creeper. It will then put forth poison flowers: Avarice, Greed, Deceit, Arrogance, Ego.

B: Mother, what dread prophecy is this?

G: It is true. That blind grandson of Satyavati will be helpless. It is all going to end in Annihilation.

B: Can I not prevent this ultimate destruction by killing Suyodhana now? Remove the soil itself that nurtures the poison plant?

G: All that is not possible. That weakling of a monarch, Dhritarashtra is himself avaricious, and will not allow you to take the law into your hands. The poison plant will thrive: it will twine its gentle arms round the life of Suyodhana and strangle him without remorse; and with him all those who love him. Even you, because you will love him. You are a righteous man but your heart will bleed for poor ill-starred Suyodhana.

B: So, until Suyodhana dies, I must live. Strong as I am, will I be strong enough to suffer so much of anguish? The mind,–it winces at the awful picture you unfurl before me. Then, in the end?

G: End? Amba will kill you. Amba and Arjuna will deliver you from this human bondage. Bhagavan Madhusudana himself will be with you when you die. When I gave you to your father I said: “I present this hero to you. Take him to the Home of Heroes”...By your presence, the House of Kuru will become a House of Heroes. It is given to great souls like you, to live lives filled to the brim with pain and anguish! It is up to you to show the world what a Hero is. Go, my child.

B: Bless me, mother. If, in the long march, my feet should grow tired, my strength fail, or my mind falter, mother, you must guide my footsteps in the right path as you often did when I was a child.

G: I will. I promise.

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