Girls of the Mahabharata by Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan

Author:Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: null
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers India
Published: 2018-01-16T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

It is only moments after Queen Satyavati emerges to greet us in the palace halls that I realize I do not like her. For one thing, she is startlingly, ridiculously beautiful, even at her age, younger than my mother, but old enough to have mothered me, nonetheless. Something about her tall and slender frame, the way her hair lies in one long braid over her left shoulder, a head ornament glittering in the middle of her forehead, the mustard flower colour of her sari which sets off her burnished brown skin, darker than any of ours, but dark like something rich and expensive, which makes us look sallow and unhealthy.

Then I notice the way she greets us, very properly but with no warmth. The water for our feet is brought out by serving girls who move with the same grace she does, and even though they do not smile, I see slight mocking in their eyes when they sit in front of us with the bowls, like they’re thinking who are these gawky little girls and couldn’t our prince find any better women? It’s not fair to judge us like this straight from a long journey, we’re all dishevelled, our fine wedding clothes no better than rags with all the dust gathered around their folds, and Bheeshma made us take off our jewellery so we wouldn’t attract dacoits.

The queen touches a scratch Bheeshma must have received during his fight with Salva, her face concerned, but only lightly. I wonder if she is capable of any deep emotion at all.

‘What’s all this?’ I hear her saying. ‘Did you let one of the men get the better of you in battle?’

‘I’ll explain another time,’ he tells her, and as I’m watching them, I see her roll her eyes and he smiles at her expression, and if I thought that Bheeshma and I were intimate during our journey together, it is nothing compared to this. I can’t explain it, not even to myself, but that brief moment when he hides a smirk and she looks at him, half-exasperated, half-amused, they could be a couple that have been married for a long time. I wonder what sort of nest of snakes we are sitting amongst.

The maids finish and leave, and we are still sitting there, facing her. Lalita has been taken away by the servants almost as soon as we arrive, and I hope that Ambalika won’t start sucking her thumb or letting her mouth fall open so that we do not look any more ridiculous.

‘You must be tired,’ the queen says, her voice a drawl. Men might call that tone ‘caressing,’ I think of it as ‘lazy’. ‘My woman will show you to your chambers. Mo?’ An older maid appears, quite a senior one – she wears three or four gold bangles and the others only beaten copper ones – but she looks kind nevertheless.

‘Come, my ladies,’ says Mo, which is a strange name, but perhaps it is common in their part of the world.

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