there was a desolate cremation ground,
a doleful place where no one ever loitered;
and there they saw a towering shami tree,
difficult to climb and with thick foliage.
Nakula shinned up, and stowed away
the brothers’ bows that had achieved such feats,
their swords, and other oiled and well-made weapons,
tying them fast with rope to a thick branch
where they could not be seen, and where the rain
would not fall on them. As a precaution,
he tied a stinking corpse to another branch
so people would avoid the tree in horror.
Yudhishthira told curious passersby
this practice was a family tradition,
and the corpse was that of his ancient mother.
Entering the city, Yudhishthira
went straight to the palace and sought audience
with King Virata. “Sir, I am a brahmin
seeking a position at your court
having lost my wealth.”
Virata was impressed
by his appearance. “Just look at the man—
he does not seem a brahmin, more like a god.
Tell me your name, stranger, and where you come from.”
“I was once a friend of King Yudhishthira.
I am an expert gambler—see my dice.
My name is Kanka.”
“Splendid!” said Virata.
“Make your home here, enjoying every comfort.
You should rule the kingdom by my side!”
Later, Bhima sought an audience.
Broad-shouldered as a lion, dressed all in black,
he carried cook’s equipment. “Great king,” he said,
“I am Ballava, great master chef.
Once, I was cook to King Yudhishthira
and he would eat my dishes with delight.
On the side, I am a champion wrestler
and my skill in fighting lions and tigers
will entertain you—if you will employ me.”
“What an amazing man!” exclaimed Virata.
“You shall certainly rule over my kitchens,
although, judging by the look of you,
you should be ruling Matsya instead!”
Arjuna, Nakula and Sahadeva,
clothed in their false names and histories,
presented themselves in turn, and all were met
with a similarly generous welcome.
Each found his place, as planned, within the court.
All were paid a handsome wage, and no one
thought to challenge their identities.
Dark-eyed Draupadi wandered near the palace
dressed in a single black and dirty garment,
looking troubled. Virata’s wife, Sudeshna,
standing on her balcony, noticed her
and had her summoned. “Good heavens, my dear,
what are you doing, hanging about the court
unprotected? You are so beautiful!
Your hair is glossy, your breasts and buttocks round,
your movements graceful, your face like the full moon,
and your eyes and mouth are perfect. Tell me,
who are you?”
“I am a chambermaid,”
said Draupadi. “I will work for anyone
who will feed me, clothe me and give me shelter.
I have worked for Satyabhama, Krishna’s wife,
and for Queen Draupadi at Indraprastha.
I can dress hair, I can make fine unguents.
But I won’t eat leftovers, nor will I wash
the feet of anyone.”
Sudeshna smiled.
“You look more like a goddess than a maid.
I would like you to enter my own service,
but that might well be marital suicide.
If I took you in, I’d be like the crab
whose embryo destroys her from within.
Once my husband glimpsed your voluptuous shape
he would instantly fall in love with you
and cast me off!”
“Madam,” said Draupadi,
“have no fear of that. I am married
to five strong, invisible gandharvas
who guard me constantly. Any man
who looks at me with lustful disrespect
is dead meat, believe me!” Reassured,
resolving to inform Virata, the queen
happily welcomed Draupadi as her maid,
to dress her hair, and that of her entourage,
prepare her unguents, look after her clothes
and generally become a useful presence.
As the months went by, the Pandavas
Yudhishthira won popularity
with the courtiers, and with Virata,
by entertaining them at games of dice.
Arjuna kept largely out of sight
in the seraglio, where all the women
loved him. During his years in Indra’s realm,
he had learned to sing and dance exquisitely
and, as we know, women love nothing more
than a man—or even half a man—
who is a gifted dancer. So Arjuna
danced for them, and taught them skillful steps,
showed them how to undulate seductively,
how to cast their eyes in languorous glances
and invitingly flutter their fingers.
In the royal kitchens, Wolf-belly Bhima
grew even more enormous. He was happy
and so was the whole court. Never before
had they looked forward quite so ardently
to the next meal. And when he was not cooking,
Bhima coached the young men of the court
in wrestling—a sport of special interest
since, every year, at the festival of Brahma,
people flocked to the city from far and wide
to take part in a wrestling championship
hosted by King Virata.
So in the spring,
some months after the Pandavas’ arrival,
huge, powerful men gathered in the arena,
strutting, flexing their oiled and bulging muscles.
One wrestler in particular, Jimuta,
a great hulk, lorded over the event,
so far outclassing all other contestants
that the tournament became quite dull.
The king ordered his cook to challenge him
which put Wolf-belly in a quandary—
he could not ignore the king’s command,
but if he beat the champion with ease
people might guess who he really was.
So, although he could have floored the strongman
with one arm tied, he went through all the motions
of girding himself up and oiling his body,
then puffed and heaved and grappled valiantly
before lifting the brute, whirling him round,
flinging him to the ground winded. Defeated.
After that, the king often asked Bhima
to fight, and when no one would stand up with him,
he pitted him against tigers and elephants
and had him entertain the seraglio
by entering the ring with full-grown lions.
Ten months had gone by, and the sons of Pandu
still lived unrecognized, in a condition
of quiet contentment. But not Draupadi.
The queen’s lecherous brother, Kichaka
(chief of the army, powerful at court
and throughout the kingdom), had noticed her
and made advances. She rejected him
and he, besotted with her, swore he’d send
all his wives away if she would marry him.
“Out of the question—I am already married.
You’re like an infant, cry
ing for the moon.
If you persist, my five gandharva husbands
will destroy you.”
Then lustful Kichaka,
on a flimsy pretext, had Sudeshna
send Draupadi on an errand to his house
where he lewdly assaulted her. She ran
into the hall where the men were gathered,
Kichaka chasing her, grabbing her hair
and kicking her. Yudhishthira and Bhima
were choking with outrage and sympathy
but they held back. They would risk exposure
if they gave the man the beating he deserved—
for saving a mere maid from the attentions
of the marshal of the realm.
But Draupadi,
still guarding her disguise, spoke for herself:
“Am I, the proud wife of five strong gandharvas,
to be kicked and mauled by this lawless brute?
Where are my husbands? Surely, if they were here
they would defend me, for how could they bear
to see their cherished wife defiled like this?
O king, it is your dharma to protect me—
why do you sit silent? It is an outrage
that I should be manhandled by this lout
here, in your very presence!” The courtiers
applauded her, but Virata looked aside,
dependent as he was on Kichaka.
Yudhishthira, though his temples throbbed with rage,
spoke mildly, “Chambermaid, it is not proper
that you are running here and running there
like some dancing girl. You are disrupting
our game of dice. Seek refuge with the queen.
No doubt your husbands will do what you wish
when it is the right time, in their judgment.”
“My husbands are tolerant,” snapped Draupadi,
“and yet they are no strangers to misfortune
since the eldest is a gambler!”
With that,
Draupadi stormed off to the queen’s apartments.
Sudeshna took her side, “That brother of mine
deserves to die for what he did to you!”
In the night, Draupadi could not sleep,
tossed by the furious grievance that consumed her.
She left her bed and went to waken Bhima,
certain of his concern. All her troubles
came pouring out. “Every day I have to see
my husbands eat dust—our Yudhishthira,
once the great emperor, now a gamester
on wages! You, wrestling lions to entertain
the women—I feel faint when I see that,
and they tease me, say I’m sweet on the cook!
And Arjuna—a pathetic dancing master!
Sahadeva . . . and Nakula! Well,
when I see all this, I ask myself
how I can go on living. And my own life—
mixing sandalwood paste for my ‘mistress,’
ruining my hands.” Then Wolf-belly
placed her roughened hands against his cheeks
and wept for her.
“But, Bhima, worst of all—
that goat Kichaka won’t leave me alone.
I can’t endure it! I want you to kill him.
Break him, like a pot hurled onto stone!
Do this for me.” Together, they devised
a plan.
Next day Draupadi forced herself
to smile at Kichaka, and she suggested
that they meet each other secretly
in the dance pavilion when night fell.
The man was thrilled, even more enamored.
He went home, doused himself in fragrant oils,
dressed in fine garments and, at dead of night,
crept unnoticed into the pavilion.
He could just make out the padded couch
and saw Draupadi, lying there already,
her body draped in silk, her head covered.
“My lovely one,” Kichaka crooned, approaching,
“I have conferred money and jewels upon you.
I have anointed myself with rare perfume.
Not for nothing do my women say,
‘Kichaka, you’re the handsomest man alive!’”
“How fortunate,” murmured a muffled voice.
“Oh, how voluptuous you are, you handful
of gorgeousness!” and he reached out to squeeze
the ample hips. “Your skin smells so delicious . . .”
And those were the last words he ever spoke.
The covers flew apart and, with a roar,
Bhima leapt up and seized Kichaka’s throat
in an iron grip. Kichaka struggled free
and the two men wrestled. But it was not long
before the villain’s every rib was cracked,
his head and limbs were crushed inside his body
and his spine folded like a broken reed.
Draupadi was exultant. She called the guards
and Kichaka’s kinsmen quickly gathered,
and were appalled. “Here is your flesh and blood,”
said Draupadi, “well punished by my husbands,
my five strong gandharvas, for lusting after
a married woman.”
The dead man’s relatives,
bent on vengeance, made the king agree
that she would burn on Kichaka’s funeral pyre—
she would satisfy his lust in death at least.
As she was carried to the cremation ground
Draupadi shrieked her husbands’ secret names
and Bhima, bursting from his room, his rage
making him swell to twice his usual size,
ran to the place. Uprooting a massive tree,
roaring mightily, he scattered the mourners.
“A gandharva! A gandharva!” they cried,
unable to see clearly in the dark,
and, releasing Draupadi, they fled
toward the city. But Bhima pursued them
like the god of death himself, and slaughtered
more than a hundred of the marshal’s kinsmen.
Then he strolled off to his kitchen work.
The whole city was buzzing with the news
of the massacre at the cremation ground.
A deputation went to see the king.
“Your majesty, the whole court is in danger
from that woman—she is too beautiful,
and men will naturally lust after her.
But her husbands’ vengeance is terrifying—
You must do something.”
Virata was alarmed.
This chambermaid was nothing but disaster,
what with her beauty and her vengeful husbands.
He told his wife to dismiss Draupadi.
But the chambermaid requested a delay
of thirteen days, and Sudeshna agreed
to her request—if she could guarantee
there would be no more visits from gandharvas.
In thirteen days, the thirteenth year would end.
26.
THE CATTLE RAID
At the slaying of Kichaka and his kin
there was rejoicing in Virata’s kingdom.
He had won power through his bravery.
In his time he had led Virata’s army
to many brilliant victories in forays
against surrounding lands, appropriating
thousands of choice cattle. But at home
the man had been a bully and a lecher
and no one, not even the king himself,
had dared to put a stop to his behavior.
Dhritarashtra’s and Duryodhana’s spies
had lost sight of the Pandavas, ever since
they had left the forest. For a year
scouts had searched the country near and far
but they never brought back any news;
it seem
ed the Pandavas had simply vanished.
Some thought they must have died. But the elders
disagreed. “I know the sons of Pandu
are not dead,” said Bhishma, “they are protected
by their own virtue. Wherever they may be,
they are keeping the terms of their covenant.”
The prince decreed that more efficient agents
should be sent out in a last-ditch attempt
to find the Pandavas; and that, meanwhile,
everything should be done to prepare for war.
Meanwhile, Susharman, ruler of Trigarta,
had a proposal. “I have all too often
been oppressed by raids on my cattle stations
by the Matsya army. But now Kichaka
has been found dead in odd circumstances.
Without their general’s leadership and courage
the Matsya force will be in disarray.
Now is the time to mount a cattle raid,
rustle some of their fine, glossy herds.”
Karna was delighted. “Blameless prince,”
he said to Duryodhana, “Susharman
is right—let us not waste our energy
thinking about the Pandavas, who either
are dead, or lack the means to challenge us.
Let us quickly mount an expedition
and profit from Kichaka’s sudden death.”
It was agreed. Susharman would start at once
with his army, on a week-long march
to Matsya lands. With Virata occupied
in fending off the marauding Trigartas,
Kaurava troops would follow a day later
and, approaching from another flank,
carry away thousands of prime cattle.
On the eighth day after this plan was hatched
the Pandavas’ long exile would expire.
Virata was sitting with his councillors
when a breathless herdsman ran into the hall.
“Indra among men! Trigarta troops
have turned up in force. We fought with them
but they’re too numerous for us to tackle
and, even as I speak, they’re rounding up
thousands of your sleek and purebred cattle
and driving them away!”
At once, the king
mobilized his excellent standing army,
well equipped, well trained, and strengthened by
the cook, the gaming master and the two
stockmen. The chaste and accomplished dancer
was not required to give his services,
and stayed discreetly in the women’s quarters.
Virata proudly led his troops to battle,
engaging with the well-equipped Trigartas
before night fell.
The forces were well matched.
The battlefield was soon awash with blood
and strewn with severed limbs. When the darkness