An interlude to Sunset

18 - The Part Where Friendship Perseveres - Arjun

This is a Mahabharata Fan fiction mostly based on facts we see in Star Mahabharata. The Mahabharata in its entirety holds a lot of facts and is a complicated and marvellous creation, but this is just a fan fiction. There are several facts which were not included/ not correct in Star Mahabharata but I am specifically basing my fan fiction on the serial with some changes. So there will be several anomalies. This story is just meant as an entertainment and there is no intention to hurt anyone's feelings, religious or otherwise. I have just borrowed the characters to weave a storyline.

18 - The Part Where Friendship Perseveres - Arjun

A prink on his finger... But it was not his finger.

The feel of leaves on his palm... Bael Leaves.. But his hands were empty.

There was a presence he could feel just behind his senses... his eyes tried to see but Arjun knew that the effort was futile. The smell of petrichor permeated his sense. It could be none other than Krishna; his Madhav.

A sense of displacement crept in; Arjun felt as if he was in someplace else, in a different body. But the aura felt familiar, all encompassing.

"Krishna..." He called out almost on a reflex and he felt the faintest whisper of comfort run through him.

He could see a simple temple structure, showing signs of age and weathered by the natural ailments over the years. A few bricks and rocks were missing here and there and creepers and vines were growing over the walls.

Arjun knew almost immediately that he was not physically present in the space and he was a mere spectator in someone else's memories.

There was an idol of Mahadev honouring the temple and the visage of the idol was so beautiful, serene and lifelike, that Arjun felt as if the omnipresent God had simply taken a seat and chose to leave his visage behind.

The archer was quite lost in his admiration of the idol when he heard the soft footsteps and then saw Madhav walking up the stairs of the temple.

Madhav.... The dark skinned lord held a small metal container in his hands and there were a couple of Bael Leaves in his hands. He approached the idol and just stood there for a long time, gazing at the idol.

Arjun was taken aback to see the tears streaming down his friend's face. Arjun had never really seen Krishna breaking down so completely.

The Dwarakadhish knelt down on the rough stone floor and titled the metal container over the Idol's feet. One by one he washed Lord Mahadev's feet with the Milk and Ganga Water mix and dried them ever so lovingly with his Angavastra. Thereafter, he offered by the Bael Leaves to the idol and stood back, his head bowed in piety and devotion.

This display of such complete devotion was not easy to look unto, it felt like eavesdropping on an extremely private conversation. A interaction between a lord and his devotee. But Arjun also felt as if he had been granted the greatest privilege ever. He had never seen anything to pure, so innocent and yet so utter intense.

Krishna did not utter a single chant, nor did he pray. He just stood there, his head bowed and hands folded; the devotion was palpable in the atmosphere.

It was only short moments before the air around shimmered, and Krishna was enveloped within a burst of intense light.

"Madhav!" Arjun called out impulsively but unsurprisingly, his voice went unheard.

The light grew a little less intense and Arjun could make out just the faint shimmery visage of Lord Mahadeva, whoo looked as resplendent as he has always been described as. Arjun bowed his head in prayer and supplication.