The Step Not Taken
This was perhaps the most gruelling task that he had been entrusted to do. Time and again, he gave it a thought. He cudgelled his brains a million times as to how he would frame his persuasion into words to entreat acceptance from the listener.
And, he was a God.
He was a God incarnated in the form of a human.
He had been sent for a supreme purpose, for which his prospective listener had been sent as well.
And yet, they were both human, and hence, some characteristics of the human race had been imbued in them as well. They were meant to act as humans, and feel what humans felt, beginning right from, anger to sympathy, forbearance to intense desires, practically everything that humans were supposed to feel, restrain, and let go of.
Today, her decision would be a determinant of the fate of the entire world.
Though fate can never really be denied. Fate would wean its desired course in some way or the other.
Kanha's steps took him inside, even further, in that little dwelling in the forest in which the Pandavas were residing, for now.
And he saw her there. Sitting on the cot, inside that little cottage, in the forest, her dark lustrous skin, setting the otherwise dimly-lit room aglow.
Such was the intensity of the Fireborn.
She had been endowed with the intensity of the fire which had sired her.
And, she could make a God, think a million times for presenting her with a proposition. She could make a God think about his indiscretion, at a place, and at a time when she had to make her own decision to choose someone worth her hand.
And now, she was thinking if she had chosen what she had wanted to.
"Krishnaa." Kanha softly called out to her. She answered just like he had known she would, she merely turned, her simmering gaze fixed on him.
"Are you here with a proposal which entreats me to marry the Pancha Pandavas?" she asked him, sternly, her eyes locked in his endearing gaze.
"Krishnaa," Kanha inhaled deeply, framing his next sentence, "You need to understand the frail nature of this situation. This is what nature demands of you."
Nature demands me to be a wife to five men to accomplish the purpose of my birth, she thinks. What utter nonsense.
She glared at him, her gaze echoing her thoughts. Kanha felt it burn through his heart, drilling into his being. Had anyone else been there, he would have been charred into a mass of soot.
Kanha, inhaled, again, breathing Krishnaa's lotus fragrance within himself, which did not have its usual soothing effect. Instead, it muddled him even more.
He was asking a woman to drown herself into a lifelong struggle. True she was a goddess incarnate, sent to fulfill a purpose, a purpose involving numerous, egregious sacrifices on its altar. Yet, there had to be a lot other ways of doing that.
"Kanha," Krishnaa spoke, "You must tell me what you think. You must tell me if Mata Kunti's words are really as irrevocable as you'd deem them to be had someone else been in my place."
No one else can be where you have been placed, Krishnaa, Kanha thought.
"If you want an answer, Krishnaa, you must know, destiny cannot be denied. Kunti Ma's words were meant for you. I forbade Karna's participation despite your desire of letting him do so, because that was not meant to be."
These words sound frivolous even to me, Kanha thinks.
'I will not marry a Suta!' her own words singed her ears. She alone knew how they had torn her apart. Some of the spectators therein, might have marvelled at her rigidity of not letting a low-born charioteer participate in her swayamvar, but, she knew, that she had been the weakest then. Perhaps ever weaker than the one who had won her, and was now inclined to get her married to his brothers.
Karna would never have let this happen to me, she thinks.
"So you are here, at Kuntidevi's behest to explain to me the moral, ethical, and scriptural authorities that authorise my marriage to five men, to fall within the ambit of your so-called Dharma, that you seek to preserve." she said. Her voice of the sweetest melody, had a caustic, vitriolic edge to it, so much that Kanha felt his his insides twinge.
"Krishnaa, this is needed to keep them united. You are their bondage, that which binds them together."
"The pious, progeny of the Gods requires me to keep them united?! The Son of Dharma, requires me to keep them united so that they can be strong enough to face the Kauravas. Well, then, does Prince Duryodhan, have to consent to his wife getting married to the rest of his brothers to keep them united?!" Her voice was even more caustic, and now, it had an unmistakable edge of castigation in it.
"No wonder why the Kaurava Scion could have them uprooted from their palace in a snap of his fingers! And now, they need me as an instrument to get their share!" she continued.
Kanha cannot help but agree. Those words sounded much worse when she said them aloud.
"So what do you want, Krishnaa?"
"I want to return to my former choice, Kanha." she said, her sonorous voice resounding her solidarity.
Kanha gulped. "You want to shun Dhananjaya, and go to Vasusen, instead. Do you know what that entails?" he asks.
"Condemn, acrimony, and a few tongues uselessly wagging about me being a rebel, favouring Adharma." she replied haughtily. "Nothing that wouldn't result if I comply to this proposed ridicule of me being a unifying force for the Pandavas."
Kanha inhaled again, thinking deeply about something, possibly the implications.
"How can you be so sure of Vasusen? He is, after all, with the Kaurava Scion. And above all, he was faced with severe insults during your swayamvar. How do you know that he would yield?" he asked.
"Truth transcends everything, Kanha. You taught me that. Angaraj is noble enough to consider the truth." she answered.
"Don't you feel scared? You know the baleful fate of the spurned Amba."
"Ah, Shikhandin!" Krishnaa breathed, "A result of the Gangadatta's vow of eternal celibacy. Perhaps Vausen is an exception. He has always been so, isn't it?"
A contemplative silence followed.
"Are you sure?" Kanha asked her, his features, relaxed, to an extent.
"Why should I always do someone's bidding? Is that what my unusual birth warrants of me? My father sought our birth to complete his pursuit of revenge on the Acharya, and to insinuate his way to the Kuru household. I do not see any way in which I won't be doing that if I do not take the Pandavas to be my common husbands."
But they need you, without you, they would be weaker, than ever, Kanha thought.
"Is the progeny of the Gods that weak, Kanha?" her query came out loud, and clear.
"I hope that they aren't." Kanha heard himself say. Krishnaa's face lit up.
"And even if they are-" he continued, "I will be by their side. Sometimes, they have to understand and act in ways suited to ensure their survival, and I will take care of that."
Krishnaa's lips curved into, a heavenly divine smile, illuminating the dark cottage, like there was a festival of lights therein.
"And, Kanha, won't you be there if Angaraj-" she tried to pose a question.
"I'm meant to be there for you, Yajnaseni."
So, that night, opposing Kuntidevi's wishes, the Princess of Panchala, made her solitary way to Anga, in the pursuit of her love, who she was sure, would not spurn her, and even if he did, Agnijyotsna, did not need a the mundane tag of husband to justify her existence as a woman, even in this orthodox land of Aryavarta. Kanha would always be the angel on her shoulder, illuminating her path, showing her the way, whenever she needed him.
So, the Yajnaseni sped her way on the horse that Kanha had arranged for her, tracing her way to her destination.
If the war is destined to happen, it shall, no matter how circumstances are maneuvered, Kanha thought as he watched her leave.
Whatever will happen, will happen, eventually, Fate just needs to change her course accordingly, he mused.
And it will, I'm sure, he nodded to himself, complacently.