Karna: the lost prince

Patching the hearts

"You are such a nice boy , bringing me even medicine and repairing my wall...thank you...but your eyes look puffy and sad..are you alright Putra? "Said the old woman.

"I am fine,dadi ( grandmother) don't worry  and Don't thank me...I am here to do as promised."

"If you don't want to talk about it ,then it's fine but in older age a person gets this understanding about certain things, and what ever is hurting you ,I pray to God that it gets solved quickly ,so you would be happy. Go ahead start your work ,I am in the backyard of you need me for anything." Said the old lady.

"Thank you ,dadi... I will let you know when the work is done." Replied Vasu.

He unloaded the hay and lime stone from the carriage and picked up two vessels from the yard to go to the river shore to gather and bring red soil and wet sand here ,after mixing all this ingredients on proper proportion ,he would be able to patch up the wall.

He turned around and found five young men standing behind him, he identified them immediately as Pandavas.

"We are here to help, jyestha." Said yudhisthira.

Listening himself be called jyestha with such love and respect evoked a certain heart warming feeling inside him but he stopped himself from feeling anything else.

"Princes ,you all should return to the palace before anyone finds you missing and gets suspicious." He said and started to push the carriage towards the direction of river banks.

Pandavas followed him , without saying anything, they were not going to go back this easily.

Vasu started to gather Sand and soil with the help of a shovel ,as soon as he filled one vessel ,one out of five pandavas  would pick it up and unload it in the carriage, before he even could put down the shovel to pick up the vessel/ mortor pan.

Finally ,he snapped.

"Stop..stop it....I don't need your help." He shouted.

"We know...you are capable enough to achieve anything and you don't need us but we need you.....ever since we found out that we have an elder brother ,we were dreaming about having him in our lives, having you in our lives, hoping that he would like us,love us and let us love him in return and you have all the rights to be angry with us ,even punish us but don't forsake us, we have lost a father already , don't let us loss our elder brother again... please give us some place at your feet...please and we will never ask  for anything from you again." Requested yudhisthira.

"You don't understand...do you?.....what you are asking for, I cannot give it to you." Said Vasu.

'Why not, jyestha? Don't you like us, we were friends even before we come to know about all this, we respected and care for you even when you were just a friend for us."said sahadeva innocently.

Vasu's heart ached hearing his youngest brother talking like this.

"I like you ,prince sahadeva. I like all of you but I cannot accept you , revealing my identity to the kingdom would only bring disgrace to rajmata Kunti and problems for all of you. Even if no one in royal family is against it but what about minister, officials , people, allies of hastinapur,all of them would never accept someone like me to be the part of royal family..... though maharaj Pandu accepted me ,I am still a son born before rajmata's marriage and I have lived all my life as a suta ,covering my face ,as a mere servent....many will not be able to digest all these facts." Said Vasu .

"And you think we care about all that, not at all....we only care about you and getting our family together. You are most important for us." Said Arjun pleading,a little shaking in his voice.