DRAUPADI - 85

  

Prafulla Kumar Mohanty's 

DRAUPADI - 85

The Last Day of The War

 

Kurukshetra is slushy with the rain of death

chariots sink, Karna is killed

again by deceit;  Arjuna's unheroic shaft

beheads Karna, the Sun God's proud son,

Kunti's first born rolls on the earth without

rights, recognition, the majesty of the warrior

is trounced without a chance to pick up

arms, fate's poor curse ends a rich life.

Duryodhana loses his limb, human dignity suffers

an irreparable loss by the dark desire of man.

 

Draupadi forgot Karna had called her a slut

she regretted her own words at her Swayambara.

 

At the dusk of the eighteenth day

Duryodhana lay dying at the lake

the sun shied away fast when he

crowned Aswasthama as Commander

the war was not over, the death of

Duryodhana did not ring the curtain

on the benighted soil of Kurukshetra.

Aswasthama killed the sons of Draupadi

and her brother Dhristadyumna

in the war's most hateful crime

 while the unsuspecting boys

slept breathing innocent peace.

 

Draupadi fainted bemoaning

the mother in Draupadi is dead

she is halved, the better part

for posterity is gone, future now

is barren, the Pandava wife will

leave nothing for her memory,

and the last thunder struck on

Uttara's belly sealing their seed

to history's callous recordings   - Yet

Krishna revived the dead child

 a consolatory toy for gamester time.

The war is over

The war is won

The Pandavas are victorious:

Draupadi in her closed room

bewailed her victory

in historical laughter.

 

The widowed Bharat wailed

the orphaned earth howled

the sunken sky moaned

all the heroes are gone

those who were worthy of life

lay betrayed in our victory.

 

Family, clan, lineage

dumped in time's garbage

rot in hateful verbiage

stinking the barren future

nameless in airless sepulchre.

Friends relations smile awakening faces

in earth's all assimilating spaces

lay memoryless in selfabused heroism

asking for inches of power plume.

 

Yudhistira cried, the forests mourned

the far oceans roared

birds in mournful whimper

sat on songless branches in dolour,

widows of golden Bharatbarsha

observed obsequies in tearful silence.

Tonsured in futureless gloom

in Ganga, Yamuna and ghats of doom

orphans moved in streets and homes

vultures screeched from roofs and domes

hungry beasts lowed everywhere

the jungle kings had feasts of fare,

Palaces stood  like colour scrapped stones

none to feed and guard the lonely bones

Hastina was empty, an abandoned shell

the meat was gone the winds of hell

ruined the minds corrupted the souls

they ranted and roared in arrogant holes:

Now the victors, the glorious Pandavas

the survivors of Kurukshetra tandavs

entered to reign over a land burnt out

without ceremony in submissive humility.