She is given by her father Yayati to Galava so he could gather 800 special horses for his guru Vishvamitra from four Kings in exchange for allowing them to have their way with Madhavi.
Galava 'leases' her out to the Kings Haryashva, Divodasa and Ushinara of Ayodhya, Kashi and Bhoja respectively in exchange for 200 horses each time. In the end, when Galava is unable to find any more horses to fulfill his promise to Vishvamitra, the latter quite enthusiastically takes Madhavi with him, rebuking his student for not bringing her to him sooner.
Her sons from the three kings and Vishvamitra are Vasumanah, Pratardana, Shibi and Ashtaka. After their births, Galava returns her to Yayati who tries to get her married.
Tired of being paraded around like livestock, Madhavi rejects the swayamvara, retreating to the forest to spend her days in penance instead.
When Yayati is later cast down from heaven, he takes half the merit earned by his daughter to re-ascend to his previous state, while Madhavi is left playing catch up.
Personally, I believe that Yayati's rather cruel behaviour with Madhavi is the ultimate culmination of his relationship (or rather the lack of) with her mother Devayani.
It is repulsive how all the men in this story treat her: Galava clearly cares for nothing more than fulfilling his own agenda, and the kings are revoltingly eager to take advantage of this 'scheme' as they delve into uncomfortable details of Madhavi's body at every chance.
No wonder she did not wish to marry even when she is finally accorded a chance.
@sambhavami's Devayani and Madhavi posts have brought back my obsession with them. I've reblogged and rambled in the tags endlessly, however between these and the Sharmistha post, I keep making myself miserable by thinking about Shukra. Poor man, he tried his best, you can tell, but his best is never enough. Not for his side to win decisively against the Devas, not for his wife/lover to remain with him, not even to save his daughter.
Like. The whole story starts because he sees a beautiful woman and gets together with her, and they have a daughter, and for a while they are so, so happy. And then he's realises, oh, I'm running from my duty to my people, and wants to return, but Jayanti his wife will not come, not when she of the Devas (the enemy, the enemy), not when she loves her father, not when her father is the king of gods, able to come down on them like a ton of bricks.
So she leaves. But no matter, he has his daughter, and it's not a consolation, it's a whole trophy. If this separation was a battle he has already won (it wasn't supposed to be a battle between them). He calls her Devayani, so she knows she might follow the path of her mother's people, so she has something of her mother even if he cannot give her Jayanti herself. Which is fine. She's sweet, she's beautiful, she's growing up fast and he loves her. It's not as well as can be but it's not all bad.
And then Brihaspati's son shows up. He's not even bad, is the thing. Shukra can be unhappy with his closeness to his daughter if he had any tangible evils but he doesn't. The Danavas kill him anyway, and his daughter comes begging and he sees at once what the gods want, knows that they will get it. It takes three tries. Shukra would be angry at his daughter's infatuation, but Kacha turns her down, and no greater punishment may be rendered by Shukra's hand.
Her grief turns to simmering rage and bitter pride. She quarrels with her friends, and speaks ill words to a companion who tongue has as many knives as her own. She is hurt, she is rescued, and now she weeps at the city gates, asking "Are you a sycophant? Are we beggars? Leave me here, if that is so."
"No," he says, "we are not. I will see you are compensated."
The compensation is a girl enslaved.
Shukra keeps failing.
His daughter finds another man to chase, and for a while Shukra is happy, because this king loves her, and there are grandchildren to dote on, and he has warned Yayati away from Sharmistha while asking him to care for her in the same breath.
And yet love makes traitors of all men, and Devayani returns to him in tears. He should not have been surprised. He too was once a traitor. That guilt is his rage, and his rage is blind, and he curses.
"Father," Yayati says, "how can your daughter be happy when I am old? What woman wants her lord unmanned?"
Shukra cannot take back the curse, but he can offer a caveat. Yayati leaves. He hears of the outcome from others, the change in inheritance. He looks out to the path outside his home. Devayani does not come again.
She is happy, he tells himself. She knows to come to me if she is not.
The thought is not as convincing as he would like it to be.
Devayani does not return.
Hope dies last, but hope dies as well, and Shukra leaves. From the corner of his eye he sees a girl by the side of the road, her face turned away. The curve of her chin reminds him of a distant dream, but when he looks closer, she is gone.
.
.
(There is a girl in the forest, bedecked in jewels.
Jayanti! He almost calls. Devayani!
But no, it is not them. A maiden remarkably of their appearance, but not them. Not his daughter, not his wife.
"Who are you?" he asks anyway.
"Madhavi, daughter of Yayati," she says, and tells her tale, and Shukra thinks he will never know the end of this bone-deep grief, of Devayani's sorrow.
Jayanti, he thinks despairingly, even now, even after so many years. Jayanti, what do I do?
Jayanti is not here. Madhavi is, though, so he asks her, "What do you want?"
"To live," she says. "To be like them." She points at the herd of deer running past. "To be free."
Shukra wants to shake her, to demand she tell him who gave her that stupid boon, so he can find them and curse them; he wants her to tell him to go slay the kings and her sons, to pull Yayati down from Jayanti's Swarga by his ankles and rip him apart, but he has asked her what she wants, and she has answered.
"I will show you, if you will it," he offers.
"I would be honoured."
Madhavi bows, and when she rises, she is princess no more. In her place is an ascetic to be, free as the deer, Mrigacharini.)
(Later, she gives her virtues to her fallen father, smiling, sending him to where her mother so dearly wished to go.
"He is my father," Madhavi says. "They are my sons. It is our duty."
There was once a woman who loved, whose sons did not honor their father as he willed. There was once a woman he loved, and she had a little girl, who grew up to have another little girl, and they were all the same.
There was once a man who loved greedily, viciously, clawing on to all he named his own. There was once a man whose hands reached out and took and took and took. And there was another who would take nothing.
There were so many men and women and he has lost count of them all.
Shukra turns away, unable to contain his bitterness. His little girl is gone, but Devayani remains anyway.)
30 Years of Swarg (18/05/1990) It is directed by David Dhawan.
The film stars Rajesh Khanna, Govinda, Juhi Chawla, Madhavi, Neena Gupta, Paresh Rawal, Dilip Dhawan, Raja Bundela, & Satish Kaushik. Songs by Anand Milind and Sameer.
The moment when Jodhaa realises Jalal has won her heart, and decides to return to Agra. (HEY AVANI. ❤️)
(HEY YOU. ❤️)
“Did you hear?” Neelakshi says, with the last of her breath. “The news? From Agra?”
Madhavi frowns and shakes her head at her, but Jodhaa does not acknowledge the words by so much as a frown. The Princess might have allowed herself to betray some interest before her husband’s visit and subsequent departure some weeks previous, but now? Now Jodhaa smiles even less than before, laughs not at all, and will not so much hear the Emperor’s name without excusing herself immediately.
Neelakshi doesn’t seem to have realized this, though, because the next words out of her mouth are: “The Emperor has passed a decree!”
To Madhavi’s surprise, Jodhaa does not spring up at once; nor does she seem particularly impressed by this. “He has been known to do so,” she says, with uncharacteristic irony, and turns her head away.
“No,” Neelakshi wheezes, and pauses, as much for dramatic effect as from fatigue. “He’s done away with the pilgrim tax!”
Jodhaa sits up, eyes wide.
“And that’s not all,” Neelakshi continues, no longer quite so exhausted now that she’s caught her audience. “They say he made the decision himself, after going among his people in disguise. He was very adamant that if his people felt it should be so, it was his duty to follow their whims.”
Which all seems entirely too good to be true to Madhavi, but Jodhaa looks a thousand times more alive than only instants before.
“He listened,” she says to herself, wondering. “He listened.”
Madhavi is just about to suggest that they’ve been out in the sun too long, if the Princess will start rambling nonsense, but before she can, Jodhaa climbs to her feet.
“Please collect my belongings,” she commands, “and let me make my apologies to my elders. I believe it’s time we returned home.”
