Madri watched the small bundle of joy with the utmost admiration. It has been 3 months since his arrival. Kunti could have never made her this jealous. Her thoughts on her relationship with her co-wife were amalgamated with marital intimacy and superiority in love for her husband, but since the arrival of the second Pandu-putr Bheem, she could not take her eyes off the boy.
Initially, it had been a bit rough. His arrival again had her in the throes of longing for an unborn child which would have her blood running in his veins. She was happy seeing her family progressing, the royal blood in her veins swelling with the happiness of her husband's progeny moving forward- but the hollow pit in her stomach rumbled with hungry dreams.
The first time she felt differently disturbed was when Bheem cried in his mother's absence. Kunti was off to finding Yudhistir playing his infancy crawling adventures and all the cottage could suffice was Madri and Bheem's presence in a dual severity.
Just the two of them.
His cries racked the clouds. Excessive and dreary. But to Madri, it didn't feel annoying at all. It felt as if it jilted her soul in an unknown expression of warmth. She felt as if she would flood with affection and drown in her need to clutch the boy close to her bosom. She had her hands stirring the spatula in the cauldron and the very next moment she was against the bedside, cooing to the boy.
It was a relief.
A major one, the one she hadn't felt in years together.
She touched his skin, supple soft, and fragranced with pure infancy. At that moment he could have killed her and she would be still drenched in his enamor. His eyes, submerging the world in them, were already a tinge of red from crying. She felt her incapability to feed him and at that moment she was so, so jealous of Kunti, but for an entirely different reason. It was the fulfillment Kunti experienced with all she had, and all this time she thought it was less. She was not only wrong but delusional. All this time it had not been about the competition she thought she had with her co-wife, but maybe it was the pursuit of happiness she never walked towards and always ignored.
Bheem beamed at her, with an extraordinary brilliance as she cradled him high in her arms- lulling him to sleep, tracing herself with him, crying a bit harder and a lot more silently than him.
