Bhimsen: Episode 54

The chest protector Visokan had procured for me from a supply the Pandya kingdom had sent over was unlike anything I had ever used before.

Made of specially treated cowhide and supple as a second skin, it moulded itself to the shape of my body. Though it permitted unfettered movement, it was tough enough to withstand spears and arrows except when the range was really close.

I strapped on the protector and arm guards made of the same material, and after applying the tilak of sandal-paste and blood-drenched kumkum, walked out of my lodge just as Yudhishtira drove up in his chariot, unarmed and heading towards the Kaurava camp to seek the blessings of the elders.

“It is Krishna’s suggestion,” he said, when I pointed out that Duryodhana’s capacity for treachery was endless.

The priests had already performed their yagas to the gods. I walked over to the mandap and stood for a long moment in prayer. Maybe I was imagining it, but I felt the light caress of a breeze, and hoped the ‘father’ I had revered through my childhood, Vaayu, had come to be with his son in the war to follow.

Arjuna was also engaged in prayer. Though we didn’t talk, I got the sense that all was not well, and the puffiness around his eyes suggested a sleepless night.

Visokan was waiting for me beside the war chariot I would be using – a massive vehicle drawn by six gray horses and flying my battle standard: a rampant lion with emerald green eyes. We drove towards Dhristadyumna’s lodge, where the designated commanders were already assembled.

“I paid my respects to them all — Bhismacharya first, then Kripa, Drona, Shalya,” said Yudhishtira, who arrived shortly after me. “They all said the same thing — that if I had not come to seek their blessings they would have cursed me.”

Krishna smiled in satisfaction.

“They blessed me, said victory would be ours.” As Yudhishtira spoke, helpers busied themselves installing on his war chariot the ornate white umbrella that signified the presence of the king.

The army had begun to form up in the crescent prescribed by Arjuna. Visokan drove me to my appointed spot at the center of the formation. I jumped off the chariot and walked over to give final instructions to the mahout leading Kesavan my war elephant, and to the various captains of the division under my command.

As the first faint rays of the rising sun lit up the eastern horizon, conches blared and the big war drums boomed. I listened carefully to the beat, to the varying patterns that send signals across the line from commander to commander.

To the blare of trumpets, our armies marched forward onto the plain. As the massed ranks of the Kauravas came into view, a single conch blared from the extreme left of the field. Dhristadyumna had signalled the charge; the drumbeat picked up pace, acquired a sudden urgency.

As our forces raced across the plain, Visokan spotted Duryodhana’s chariot with the royal standard and white umbrella of the king and drove towards it.

A section of the Kalinga army charged forward to intercept me. Visokan accelerated, the horses responding instantly to his whip. The giant swords attached to the hubs of my chariot wheels churned through the flesh of opposing troops; the screams of the wounded drowned out the blare of conches and the beat of the drums.

The pungent smell of fresh blood swamped my senses; firing arrows from the deck of my chariot seemed too impersonal to slake the sudden killing rage that welled up inside me.

Hopping down from my chariot with mace in hand I plunged into the middle of the opposing forces, uncaring if my men were with me. The thump of mace on skull, the sharp sounds of bones cracking under my onslaught fuelled my frenzy. When I felt my arms tire, I spun around and forced a way back to my elephant; mounted, I guided him into the middle of the Kalingas and realized that Visokan had chosen well — Kesavan responded with a berserker fury that matched my own, trampling everything that came before him as I stood on his back and rained arrows down on the opposing troops.

Time lost all meaning. Somewhere in the periphery of my mind, I sensed that all was not well with our right flank. When a formation is holding, the pressure created by the opposing forces is spread evenly across the line; when you feel pressure intensifying from any particular direction, you know that out there somewhere on that flank, there is a problem.

All the strategies and tactics I had learnt under Kripa and Drona seemed so pointless now. From where I stood, I had no sense of how the larger battle was unfolding – before me, in the here and now, there was only the next throat to pierce with an arrow, the next head to crush with my mace.

A sudden blare of trumpets, starting on a high note and descending into a thin wail, woke me from the trancelike state of close combat. It was dusk; by the rules of engagement worked out by both sides, it was time for the day’s fighting to end.

Our forces reversed direction and marched back in the direction of the camp; as we hurried to where food and rest awaited us, wagons rushed past into the field of battle to carry the wounded back to camp and the day’s dead to the cemetery.

I headed for Dhristadyumna’s lodge. Krishna, Arjuna, Shikandi, Drupada and Satyaki had already gathered there. Arjuna sat by himself in a corner, looking downcast.

“Uttara is dead,” he told me.

The Matsya prince had engaged Shalya’s forces in a terrific battle. “He fought with rare courage,” Yudhishtira said.

I remembered a day soon after we had revealed our identity. I finished training with the Matsya army and returned to my chambers to find Uttara waiting for me.

Pacing around the chamber, he told me at length about the battle ‘Brihannala’ had fought; of how amazed he was that one man could defeat a massed force led by some of the most reputed warriors of the time.

“I was frightened that day, when I first saw the Kauravas,” he told me. “I wanted to turn and run, but Arjuna taught me what courage was. I’ll grow up into a warrior like him; I too will make my name one day,” he said that day.

And now he lay dead, in a war not of his making, to avenge an insult to those who, till just the other day, were strangers to him.

It had taken a warrior of consummate skill and experience to kill the boy. Shalya was our uncle, king of Madradesa and brother to Madri cheriyamma – and yet he and his formidable forces, on whom we had built so much of our hopes, were fighting on the side of the Kauravas.

We had left the palace of Virat for Kurukshetra, and were camped in Upaplavya on the outskirts of the Matsya kingdom, when our uncle set out with a large force and a considerable arsenal to join up with us.

All along the route, he found well-appointed guest houses ready for him to rest in; armies of servants waited at each post to cater to his needs and those of his army. It was only when Duryodhana appeared before him at his final halt before Upaplavya that Shalya realized who was responsible for the lavish hospitality.

“Having accepted all that he had provided, I could not refuse Duryodhana when he asked me to fight on his behalf,” Shalya told Yudhishtira through a messenger. “My blessings will always be with you,” he had added.

In the thick of battle, Shalya had managed to cut through our troops and launched a ferocious attack on Yudhishtira. Seeing our brother hard-pressed, Uttara had charged up on the back of an elephant and engaged Shalya. “His bravery in battle put me to shame,” Yudhishtira said, speaking of how the prince had smashed Shalya’s chariot and stampeded his horses, then jumped down from his elephant to meet the seasoned warrior with sword in hand.

“We are in a war,” Dhristadyumna broke in, his demeanour grim. “And the sooner some of us realize this, the better.”

I sensed discomfort in the sudden silence that followed. Something had happened that I did not know of, and this didn’t seem the right time to ask.

“We had a bad day today,” Dhristadyumna said, addressing no one in particular. “Another day or two like this, and it will all be over – the hardships you suffered all these years, and the sacrifices so many people are making on your behalf, will all be wasted.

“When we take the field tomorrow, every one of us will have to be fully committed to do whatever it takes to win.”

Abruptly, he turned and walked out of the room. One by one, the rest of us drifted off to our respective lodges.

A masseur was working on my body, his skilled fingers working the aches and pains out of my joints and the stiffness from my limbs when Visokan walked in.

“Your brother nearly brought the war to an end before it had even begun,” he told me.

As the two armies approached each other, Arjuna had caught sight of Bhisma, Kripa and Drona in the front rank. Throwing aside his bow, he had jumped down from his chariot and told Krishna that he could not continue – he would not commit the sin of turning his arms against his gurus.

“It was Drupada’s charioteer who told me what happened,” Visokan said. “Krishna spoke to him at considerable length. The charioteer, Sumedhu, heard only little and understood even less – he told me Krishna said something about life and death being only an illusion; that it was the soul shedding its worn out clothes and changing into fresh ones.”

The two armies had met, and war was waging all around as Krishna spoke to Arjuna. “Something he said stuck in Sumedhu’s memory,” Visokan said. “Bhisma, Krishna said, knew that right was on the side of the Pandavas. He had argued with Dhritarashtra, pleaded with him to avoid war, to give Pandavas their due share of the kingdom.

“But once war was declared, Bhisma had only one duty – to protect the kingdom he had sworn his allegiance to, and if in the process of doing that duty he had to kill the Pandavas, then that is what he would do. Every man has a duty, Krishna said, and yours just now is to fight those who have deprived you of what is your due, and offered your wife the kind of insult no man, much less a warrior, can forgive or forget.”

Arjuna had finally taken up his arms and joined the battle, but his efforts on the right flank were half-hearted – and it was on that side that we had taken the greatest losses.

As he was coming here, Visokan said, he saw Dhristadyumna entering the lodge Arjuna was sharing with Krishna.

I stood at the doorway of the lodge, looking out into the night.

Off to one side, the sky glowed bright red from the flames of the cremation ground.