"Stop blaming yourself Aarya. Please stop."
A long tired sigh escaped the son of Dharma's lips as his wife's desperate pleading fell to his ear.
"Devika" he began, his eyes bearing a distant, vacant gaze, "Tell me honestly... don't you think I'm responsible for all the disturbances that hound our lives now? Is it not me who single handedly has wronged everyone so poorly?"
"No" Devika's answer was untouched by ambiguity, "You were wrong, yes. But not alone and not completely. There are several others who had partaken a role, however big or small, in the egregious sin. You are not the sole culprit."
"But..." Yudhistira's looked away tearing away the eye contact he had been painstakingly maintaining all this while. Shame never failed in encroaching his whatever resolve he might have gathered whenever the topic was brought up.
"Look at me arya. Talk to me. Pour your heart out to me tonight."
"You wouldn't understand Devika" he mumbled in response to his wife's command, "You are not an elder brother."
"Then try to elucidate your perspective to me Aarya" she asked gently, lifting her husband's bowed head.
"Devika..I...I never wanted all this to happen Devi... I wanted no rift in the family and accepted the invite...heck I was eager about the game too but what happened was... I never could have imagined that..."
A grounding squeeze wrapped around his hand as he gasped audibly.
"That's right Aarya...let it all out. Don't bottle up things to yourself."
"I loved Panchali...I still do- I don't know whether I have the right to anymore or not..." Yudhistir inhaled sharply, "I respected her. I never thought of her as some possession of mine...believe me Devi."
"I know Aarya...I know." she reassured, beckoning him to continue while gulping the lump in her throat, consciously pushing aside her hurt over his confession.
"I don't know what happened that day-- what came over me... everything happened at once ...I was numb."
Devika stared helplessly at the vulnerability her husband was currently exuding, wordlessly placing her hands on his shoulders hunched in a defeated slump.
"We are nothing but pawns in the grand game of fate and time. Whatever that happened was meant to happen, you were simply a medium" she replied, weighing her words cautiously, "Aarya, please forget it. I cannot see you so broken, I long for my smiling husband back."
And that is what it took for the eldest Pandava's resolve to preserve his calm through the draining conversation, to come crumbling down. His dear wife's earnest, stern pleadings camouflaged the helplessness and despair that he simply could not not feel responsible for.
"Your smiling Arya was lost in that dyut sabha(gambling hall)" he stated as evenly as he could, reigning in the dry chuckles that threatened to abscond his mouth, "Love, I really have been trying my best to cope up, for you I have been trying to be back to my old self. But Devi, how can that be possible when everything I smiled for has been stripped off me now. The woman I love now loathes me, my children are sad, my brothers are distant, my mother sees me with an accusatory look..."
He paused for breath. From one of the tall windows he could see clusters of twinkling stars dotting the firmament. A sad smile formed across his lips.