HELLO MAHABHARATA

57. Noirceur

noirceur / nom féminin. french. darkness. a state of being in pitch darkness, lack of illumination

"PAUH BARAH MY EMPEROR, HOW QUAINT. . . I MEAN FORTUNATE"

When Yudhisthir threw the dices for a maiden turn, he brimmed with a glow of expectant victory unaware of hard slap that awaited him from niyati, a subtle assurance from that strange fear of the girl from kaliyug was wallowing in from last fortnight. The smile of progress and feeding on evil grain of the hunter's trap emanated from the lips of one who shall always stay calm even in havoc of war. "So I win this stake, didn't I?" revelled the eldest son of Pandu moving his spruce pawn four blocks ahead of Duryodhan's maple pawn.

"You wish. . . Samrat." Shakuni rolled the bones in his pale quartz wrinkled palms grinning nefariously. "Not the prime decision already Samrat" said Duryodhan leaning back in his regal seat with his elbow lavishly throned on the armrest of mahogany and then added, "I have staked my gems and my treasures and Mamashree plays from me, I have a hope of winning lord of my people"

"Spirits must be high always my dear brother. We play as a leisure not as I said before in gaming for this game of dice has always been a trickery. Yet since you praise dicing, once offered the challenge an emperor shall not desist. The superb lace of pearl set in the best of gold is my stake, ah, let the next move decide. Play Mamashree."

The dead and decayed bones with the splotches of shrieking ancestors made the chartreuse carved ossein a facade. For they were the fate of Pandavas, a manipulative pair of bones festooned with pinprick of blood red rubies as a staircase of numbers. Shakuni tossed them and with a cataclysmic roll, in a thud of roaring catarwaul the bones of his dead father bestowed him that desired number, the twelve of a win.

"Pau Barah. . .and we won!" jeered the master of dyut.

The hightide of voracious and derisive laughter reverberated in the court of Hastinapur's pristine mansion flooded with opulent and regal paraphernalia of chrysanthemums and amethysts. A collapse of ancestral marble ceiling in fragments of shattered terror banged the naive heads of the five princes. A scorpio and a snake can never ever be trusted. Her warning echoed in their subconscious like the conspiracy of ravens hovering in troposphere of innocent yonder.

Bheem saw the slithering serpents of a winning design ravishing on throne of Duryodhan's lips with his hood in a simper. Sahdev discerned the lucence of stratagem weaving cobwebs on the palms of Shakuni as a spider gnawing the roots from core. Nakul discovered the stagnant waters of moss in the iris of Dushasan rotten and stinking with the carnal hunger for the another sex. Arjun and his burnished copper eyes were burning arrows of sharpest tips released from the bow of revenge and suspicion to pierce the anatomy of an archer blessed by the sun god, Karn.

"Once challenged, I will not desist— that is the vow I have taken. The injunction is powerful. I am in the power of what has been decreed. For no one praises as proud as a gambler's trickery; don't defeat us by crooked means and cruelly. Let us now play" the emperor was as a hawk staring at the slaughtered soldier of spruce from the sword of maple soldier.

He shall not lay waste to his dharma. For what are the golds before honour?

"What is at the stake next. . . Samrat?" the eerie droning of dices in Shakuni's hands and a snicker resonating from the lips of Duryodhan was a shocking bombshell to Yudhisthir. "Fetch me a mead dasi" roared the eldest Kaurava beckoning a dark skinned maid who poured the sparkling burgundy drink in goblets. "A mead for the fortune of next stake my emperor?" Gandharraj said wickedly, raising his goblet in the air as the son of Pandu nodded aware of the despair and despondent eyes of his mothers and father peering at him from his brothers sight on him who was dicing with death.