DRAUPADI - 84

  

Prafulla Kumar Mohanty's 

DRAUPADI - 84

Draupadi Laments Abhimanyu’s Death

 

Did she know when she put

the tika on Abhimanyu's forehead

it was a farewell to the boy!

Draupadi lay sobbing on the floor

Arjuna was far away fighting Trigarta

none except him knew how to breach

Drona's Wheel array, Abhimanyu

knew how to enter not how to return

he had heard Arjuna's  narration

in his sleepy mother Subhadra's womb.

Draupadi beat her chest, o blighted fate

why did I agree for his jump to the spate?

 

Rage shaking her body

she rose eyes bleeding her angst   -

How could seven warriors together

surround my brave angel like vultures?

How could Drona break the rules?

Duryodhana, Karna, I can understand

but the great Guru Drona himself!

How could Kurukshetra watch this

unequal, illegal, immoral scene

seven to one in a Dharmayudha!

The earth ought to have gaped in

to swallow the criminals, the murderers

who flouted the basic norms of humanity.

What  dharma is there in blase indifference ?

O! O! Now I know Kurukshetra is just

a name like Hastina, dharma a word

like love often confused with desire.

Dharma is not law or morality

not a code of life for purity: It is

a person's need driven life

defying all values only to succeed.

 

What shall I speak to Subhadra

her inconsolable heart will repel

all explanations, all sympathy will

reopen the flood gates of world weary

sorrow to drown all citadels of patience.

Arjuna will blast the earth in fury

Jayadrath and other villains would be killed

but the blank in Uttara's heart

Subhadra's lap and my own breast

and in the Pandava dynastic pride

will remain an open wound.

Krishna whose love had raised the boy

would be buried in shame;

but nature will leave a blank in her

desired balance of good and evil.

 

Anxiety, mourning, trepidations of heart

the congested mind's nightmarish aches

are now life's existential symptoms.

Draupadi was slowly getting self immersed

waiting for no moonlit celebration

to come with any joyous bonanza.

 

Jayadrath was killed in a double sunset

one lighting Arjuna's pyre,  the other

blasting Jayadrath's head in his

Father's lap calming Arjuna's revenge

Subhadra's blisters of pain, Uttara's heartbreak

were avenged but Abhimanyu

will not return, he is purged of life's

irrational and apathetic horrors.

 

What is this revenge, Draupadi asked

musing the question in a half murmur,

if you kill the killer it's another death

Abhimanyu is not restored to life

rather another life is reduced on earth,

why then revenge is a heroic urge.

A peripatetic perpetuation of passion

to kill destroy and debase generations

as we do now killing family friends

men of worth who are not our enemies

or even guilty of anything except

the ruinous urge for heroic showmanship:

A sardonic smile mocked her thoughts

a cynical loathing for the ways of men

made her feel guilty - she too is guilty -

In a world where living is so painful

why the waste of life at Kurukshetra?

 

Guru Drona died today, nay killed

by my own brother Dhristadyumna

when the great teacher sat in deep

sorrow hearing Yudhistira's ambiguous

truth about the death of his son Asawsthama,

Krishna prompted the lies, Yudhistira

repeated tainting his Truth forever,

My Sakha so wise, so erudite, so good,

so divine yet he stooped to lies and deceit

to win to kill to destroy all greatness.

War makes all energies value free

all values dissipate in chaos

the desire to win kills the soul

the will to survive negates wisdom.

 

Bhima came running one sunset

I have kept my word Panchali

here is the depraved blood of Dussasana

whose arms soiled your sacred womanhood,

I uprooted those arms

and brought the blood for you

to wash your hair - Draupadi stood

still and silent, she thanked Bhima.

O my valiant husband, you have

always saved my honour and respected

my feminine dignity, I will remember

your love till my last breath, but

should I infect my body and soul

with this unholy blood of a villain?

Pour it into a snake hole, let the

stain make the poison look ugly

for the snakes to vomit it out:

My hero I bow to you as Woman

and hope no woman ever suffers

the craven depths of imbecile horror.