The Blue Magician

• The King •

The henna on my palm was turning a darker shade of red with each passing hour, even after the wedding ceremonies had ended. I was sitting uncomfortably amidst the baskets of fruits, shiny silks, and jewellery kept inside the bullock cart.

Aarya was sitting on the other side of the lined baskets, equally uncomfortable and tired. Under the full moon's light, I tried to catch a glimpse of him from behind my veil. This man, whom I was married to, was a stranger to me.
Except for a few interactions that took place in between the elaborate wedding rituals, we had never talked to each other. This moment, right now, was the first time we were in solitude together.
Our caravan was heading towards Dwarka, my new home. The terrain was uneven, which complemented the hard journey of a bullock cart. It took 3 days to reach Dwarka from my village, and we had already covered the journey of a day and a half. In this short span of time, I had come to notice a lot about my husband (although it still felt strange to call him that).

I had noticed how he slept with his hands under his head, mouth wide open, and how he woke up in case of the slightest inconvenience. I had observed from behind my veil that he frowned every time the sunrays would fall over me, and he would quickly raise his arms to stop those rays from petering me out. As I was busy making mental notes about the habits of this unknown person I was about to spend my life with, I occasionally wondered if he, too, would be making those mental notes about me. In later parts of my life, I did ask him this, and he did nothing but smile, something he always did (another mental note was taken that day).

On that three-day journey, we hardly talked, partly because of embarrassment and partly because we were just too tired to speak. And every time we did initiate a conversation, it somehow boiled down to a person called Krishn.

Aarya told me about him using the most complex adjectives: "the king of the universe, the mountain lifter, the most beautiful one, the stealer of hearts."

I could have believed him; after all, afterall he was talking about the king of my "to-be-home", but I just did not like this man, whom my husband was so in love with. He was an intruder in our conversations. It seemed as if he held a special place in my husband's heart that I was forbidden to visit. Even on the day of my engagement, the village was rejoicing over the fact that I was being wed to a man from Dwarka!

This Krishn had stolen the limelight of my big day, and I could never forgive him for the same (or I believed so).

In time, I started understanding Aarya better. He is a simple potter with a heart full of compassion. We became friends in no time, and I surprisingly discovered that both of us love to talk a lot.
I came to see him as the perfect human who had nothing "not likeable" in him, but I soon discovered that it was not just him but the entire kingdom of Dwarka!

Dwarka was beautiful in the truest sense. Not just in terms of landscape but also its people. The aura and vibe that Dwarka carries are unimaginable. This divinity was probably infectious because it oozed out from each of the people in this kingdom.
When I mentioned this to Aarya, he immediately credited Krishn, and he was here once again!

I cannot blame Aarya alone for being such a Krishn fanatic. That man had some kind of magical power, for sure. I had seen him from a distance once, on the day of the full moon night, in the month of Kartik; that day was always celebrated with pomp and splendour. Our king looked handsome (even from such a distance), and he had the gift of gab. I had heard that his sakhis in Brindavan would faint seeing his beauty and listening to him speak.
I, however, laughed off that claim as a mere exaggeration.