Bhima Lone Warrior by MT Vasudevan Nair

Author:MT Vasudevan Nair [Nair, MT Vasudevan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9789350297605
Publisher: Harper Perennial India
Published: 2014-04-07T18:30:00+00:00

2

I had ceased to keep track of time as we journeyed. All I could remember was that we had left Hastinapura a very long time ago.

Eventually we received a message from Arjuna, brought to us by a sage who had met him. We were asked to wait at a spot beyond Gandhamadana, where Arjuna would join us.

But before we received that message, Balarama, Krishna and their close friend Satyaki, who belonged to the Vrishni clan, came one day to the sacred spot of Prabhasatirtha. Krishna gave us news of Mother. She was comfortable in Vidura’s home. Krishna had been sending messengers regularly for news of her, and had gone there himself once. Subhadra and Abhimanyu were doing well in Dwaraka.

‘Let Arjuna come back, then we’ll decide what we should do.’

Once we began to speak about war with the Kauravas, Balarama fell silent. He did not want to take sides, since he had friends in both factions. All the same, he felt that it was wrong of the Kauravas to have appropriated the kingdom by winning a game of dice.

We grew close to Satyaki very quickly. He said, ‘The longer we delay, the stronger our enemy will grow.’ His body was as massive as mine, and we were alike in our appetite for food.

It was a fortnight after our friends left that the sage met Arjuna, and it took him still longer to bring us his message.

The sage explained to us the route to Gandhamadana. We arrived at the foot of a mountain covered by a dense forest and realized it would not be easy to scale it and get to the other side. Just where the mountain path began, we found a cave that some hermit had lived in. Since it was already dusk, we decided to stay in it that night. It was a fortunate decision, for a great gale blew that night and heavy rain lashed the mountainside.

We started to climb in the morning. At first, it was not too hard to follow the path trod by the ascetics and pilgrims who had come that way. After a distance, trees that had fallen in the storm the previous day blocked our way. We looked for another path, but the one we found was so narrow, we could hardly place our feet on it. Somehow, we managed to climb another lap. When we looked up, the mountain still towered before us, obscuring the sky.

I walked ahead of the others, clearing the branches with my hunting knife. Nakula was behind me, then Sahadeva. Draupadi followed them and Yudhishtira was last of all.

Yudhishtira cried out suddenly and I stopped. Draupadi had fallen down. I found it difficult to go down to the spot where they were. Yudhishtira had helped her sit up. Draupadi looked at me as if to say, ‘It’s too hard …’

Suddenly, a group of young forest tribals appeared, carrying axes, with ropes wound around their shoulders. I signalled to them to stop and asked them to show us the way to the top.

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