HELLO MAHABHARATA

65. Brumous

Brumous: (adj.) foggy, wintery and sunless

SHE STOOD IN THE ASSEMBLY OF MEN. In every debate and agreement, their armors and weapons screamed a war cry. Unlike the woman this war was passive actively fought for, she was not dragged or summoned to this meeting. She was not the ideal member. Neither a warrior nor a king or a prince or a general.

She was a woman.

What was the need of a woman to stand on the ground of laws and battle prerequisites and protocols of the Kurukshetra war?

Rules that shall be broken in no time. The war was a facade, an illusion. Saints believe war is the last straw, but it is inevitable. The war over land and woman is a catastrophe and blasphemous. And it began when the bones of the dead were employed to decide the fates, destroying the chastity of a goddess's auspicious blood.

The gathering of warriors was perplexed in this large marquee stretched far on the outskirts of the war field. They assembled one week before the conchs of the most epic battle of the time consumed the flesh and the estuary of blood rivers painted the earth in scarlet. The morning sun was in a haze, murky in the
sky as the sun god sagged on its chariot in desolation. A duvet of freezing yet liberating winds encircled the atmosphere. The arena was as if in the perimeter where no soul could move without the permission of the divine. Somehow the dynamisms of the abstract soul unlocked the circle, transformation was predestined too.

Over the land where years ago, Parshuram massacred the Kshatriya race, five rivers of their hot blood stained the sand crimson and made it barren for any life to sustain or breed, it was the soil where King Kuru was blessed by Indra. Whoever attains martyrdom and bleeds on this patch of the earth shall ascend heaven, such was the land chosen for the war of dharma. For the establishment of righteousness, Kurukshetra was taken, where the universe shall witness the ascension of righteousness and proficiencies for aryavrata on the culmination of Kritika and Rohini nakshatra, in the month of Margashirsha when the Chaturdashi of Shukla paksha will rise in exaltation.

Protocols and terms of the battle were crucial to be decided upon as it seemed according to kingship and warcraft. The men left their mothers, sisters, and wives behind in small cottages and large palaces. Hastinapur became a yagna of penances, where women never slumbered but chanted the hymns of Mahadev. The Pandava woman stayed in Upalavya and some in Virata, the flames erupted from their respective lamps days and nights to only die at the end of the war.

But she was in Kurukshetra, gaping into each of their eyes, some confounded and others vexed.

One word from Krishna and she was there before everyone else, standing in black silk as dark as midnight and kajal intensifying her eyes.

"What is she doing here? Women on the battlefield is a bad omen!"

Everyone including her husband didn't agree with this decision of Krishna. Perhaps this was something Kaurava and Pandava armies agreed upon but their concerns were contrary. They had their vigil eyes on stalks when they entered and found her standing beneath the lit glass chandelier of the marquee, lighting one of the many deformed candles while she drew that magnanimous shiny chandelier upwards, the rope scraping her palm and a spurt of red liquid dripped over the diamond of her left finger.

"What are you doing here?" Arjun dashed in two steps and held her bleeding hand in his, fingers pressing the wound as he whispered near her ear, his copper eyes disappointed and livid. He was not unaware of her rebellious character but then she was never to step out of the boundaries laid by the Vedas and Upanishads.

She was neither provoked nor mortified. She stared at him taciturnly, withdrawing her hand from his fingers and gesturing him to occupy his seat.

"I asked her to come to the assembly" Krishna was the last to arrive when he ducked in the entrance, his golden armor blinded them and morpankh as if something that belonged to her. "Its your morpankh and I shall wear it from now so you can see what happens in the battle of dharma" Krishna didn't even speak but stood in the doorpost, smiling as if it was not a whammy for others to have a woman in the battlefield.