A String Of Pearls

Before the War

Vasudev Shree Krishna came to Hastinapur as a peace messenger from the Pandavas for negotiations.

Bhanumati was hopeful upon hearing this since this might have meant that they could, in fact, avoid the disaster after all. She had thought it would be impossible after the Dyut Sabha but here was their chance!

But as always, it seemed that all sense always left her husband whenever it came to the Pandavas.

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Bhanumati was absolutely stunned. Five Villages! Five Villages! That was all! But no.

"I will not give a needlepoint worth of land!"

And then he had attempted to bind the Lord of Dwarka in shackles!

It was sheer insanity.

She--she simply couldn't believe it. Firstly, rejecting a peace offer that was so--so favourable for them! Bhanumati had thought that the minimum requirement would be returning Indraprastha, which would have been absolutely understandable, but Vasudev had been willing to negotiate up to a mere five villages!

Everybody in the Palace was flabbergasted. Pitashree Dhitarashtra wouldn't speak to anybody as he seemed to have gone into a state of shock, Pitamaha Bheeshma had had a massive argument with Duryodhan and then he and Kakashree Vidur had gone off somewhere together, perhaps to vent their grievance.

It was so bad that even Mama Shakuni lost his temper with Duryodhan!

Even Bhrata Karna looked like he was ready to tear his hair out in frustration and he was always ready for a fight with Arjun.

"I'm going to go apologise to Vasudev. This was truly deplorable behaviour! No one should treat a peace messenger like that!" He told her and rushed off on a chariot after Dwarkadeesh before the latter could leave Hastinapur.

And she stormed off to their quarters to have a chat with her husband.

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"They say people lose their minds when they sense that the end is near! Is that what's happening to you?" She snapped at Duryodhan, who turned to glare at her.

"Mind your words, dear."

"Or what?" She challenged. "You have no right to ask me to mind my words after you have acted so foolishly!"

"I have done nothing wrong--"

"How can you say that?!" She shrieked at him, completely losing her cool. "After everything, how can you even utter those words?! If you hadn't done anything wrong, we wouldn't be at the brink of war!"

Duryodhan fell silent and just looked at her for a while.

"I have not done anything wrong by denying to give my Kingdom to the Pandavas." he finally specified.

"Indraprastha is not yours to begin with!" She exclaimed. "Hastinapur is yours! But not Indraprastha!"

"It is mine." Her husband growled. "I won it. It was infinitely foolish of Yudhishtir to bet his Kingdom. That's not my fault!"

He twirled away from her, his angavastra swishing. "Yudhishtir could have got up and left the game at any point of time, had he wished to do so. Until he lost himself, he was still the Emperor. No one could have stopped him. That he didn't, is entirely his fault. And now, Indraprastha is mine and I'm not going to give it away."