Natyam | A Mahabharata Fiction

39.

The cycle of nature is to move from fertility to decay. It is an art. It is a patient art that weaves indolently across time, unnoticed in its moment because its span is too broad for us mere mortals to keep track of.

It's only when one ponders over the time gone by that one realises this cycle.

During the microscopic timespan in which mortals exist, demi-gods, and us humans, are always in a hurry. A hurry to do something, to be somewhere. Most notably, we are always in a hurry to prove a point. Any point-it doesn't matter how grandiose or trivial it may be. You must have seen how belligerent people can become when they are motivated to prove something.

Arjun was the epitome of this-the hurry to prove his greatness. To be unrivalled.

Which is why, when Karna asked him to pause their duel so that he can fix his chariot's wheel, Arjun hesitated for only a moment, for the sake of dharma.

In the next moment, he removed an arrow from his quiver and shot his brother down.

*****

W

hen the maid trembled to tell me the news, I knew.

I curse all of you to the most unfair deaths possible.

I knew that someone near and dear had been hit. Instinct only made me think about Karna.

I remember deciphering this from the maid's disposition and the heart-wrenching roar that came from battlefield's direction.

It was deafening.

"Sakha," I whispered, getting up and entering the field.

I curse all of you to die knowing that your death was a result of foulplay, as you have done today.

My own curse rang in my ears as I weaved through corpses and discarded weapons. The fighting had stopped.

Every soldier was crowding around the scene of the crime, eager to get a glimpse of what was going on.

There was another scream. My heart stopped.

"Radheya!" I yelled, throat screeching. I began to run.

Please, bhagwan, please.

*****

Many years later, Arjun apologised to me. Kanha had passed away and he was in immense pain. Arjun was inconsolable for weeks. I had held him through it all.

That was when he apologised to me. "I beg your forgiveness, Mrinali. If this is what it is like to live without a friend, I cannot imagine how you have survived for so long. Because I cannot-without Madhav, I can hardly breathe."

Arjun had apologised a thousand times. But only for killing a man. Not a friend.

In his apology, he had summed up the emotions I felt on the penultimate day of the war.

I could barely breathe.

Eyes of molten gold rested upon my own. Even in pain, they were radiant. Shining.

I never like to think of Karna as bloodied. When I used to dream about him after his death, I would see him in his full glory. The tanned skin, basking in the sunlight and radiance of his kavach. Karna with a warm, happy smile. Pristine. His curls, a wild tangle. Truly, a child of the Sun.

But sometimes, the nightmares used to hold this bloody version of him. Karna, bleeding out. A squirelly rasp for a voice rather than the deep baritone. The glow of his skin was missing. The earth caked his hair from where he lay on the ground.