Satataharitam - Short Stories On Narayana

The Imaginary Embrace

Rukmini walked into her room after a particularly long session in the council, putting down her massive robes and closing the doors. The setting sun on one side of the horizon made way for the moon to rise on the other.

Twilight was the time Krishna and her would have a cup of tea, or just stroll by the beach. It was their time of the day, after all the work was done, and they spent it together irrespective of anything else.

Except now, Krishna was away, with the Pandavas, almost instantly after Arjuna had chosen him ahead of the army. He was with the sons of  Kunti for the impending war and Rukmini was already missing him more than usual this time.

She smiled as the moon reigned over the sky, the sun leaving for the day. How she wished Krishna would be back the next morning, as she knew the sun would! All she could do, however, was hope the war would begin soon, and end with minimal damage, so she could finally have him back at home.

Trained to be an Empress, she never felt the need to express herself. In all those years, she had barely ever confided in someone about the fact that she missed her husband sorely. And the one person she had never told, only because she knew he'd hate himself for it, was Krishna himself.

Rukmini shook her head and picked up a painting of Krishna in her hands, slumping into the couch by her window. She couldn't help but smile.

He was so adorable. And that wasn't news to anybody. But Rukmini, even after decades of being in love with him, just couldn't get over how he stole her heart all the time. Even if he was miles away, he managed to make her melt just the same.

The room was filled with paintings of her Bhuvanasundara, despite Krishna initially expressing absolute shock upon seeing it.

"Oh my goodness, I'm all there is in this room!" he had shrieked, when Rukmini had called him to show how she had arranged everything in her personal room, soon after their marriage.

Rukmini had been rather shocked too, because the amount of things that screamed Krishna were not as many in that room as they were in hers, back in Vidarbha. "That's a couple of paintings of you, that's all."

There were three of those back then, and a vase with lotuses which would be changed everyday. The lotuses weren't entirely something that were for Krishna, though, because Rukmini herself loved them a lot too. There had been barely anything Krishna in the room in comparison to how it was now.

Those three paintings and the vase stayed. The additions were dozens of paintings of Krishna, some inside her treasure of beloved things, and others hung up on the wall to look at her everyday. His flutes and hers were arranged in a shelf of glass, and a decent number of peacock feathers surrounded the instruments.

Of course there was more for decoration, more things that were just aesthetic. But for emotion, these were all that mattered to her. Of course, in addition to the few peetambara-s of his that she'd decided to bring to her room, so she could remind herself, in his absence, of his embrace by wrapping it around herself. It usually worked.

Tonight, Rukmini yearned for that embrace. Why? She didn't have an answer. She just wanted to hug him tight and tell him how much she missed him all the time, or even just stay quiet and have his warm hand on her hair, stroking it.

She looked down at the picture she held in her hands.

Wow, she thought, not for the first time. She didn't know whether to appreciate the artist who had managed to capture so much of her man's infinite beauty, or to appreciate just how stunning her Krishna always was.

She ran her fingers across the canvas, feeling every slight texture send chills down her spine. She would never understand how just a picture of his face could do this to her, but she relished it nonetheless.