Draupadi

CHAPTER XVII

"Love, to a woman, is not a soft thing. It is a ledger: every wound, every gift, every silence carefully recorded in the dark."

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I remember a time — a lifetime ago, it feels now — when Arjuna told me, almost absently, "If I know the slightest thing about love, it's because of my eldest brother."
The Pandavas loved their eldest more fiercely than anything else in this world. It wasn't a question; it was their weather. It was their sun. And it was something I had learned to live with, like a country you marry into.

And, well... Yudhiṣṭhira loved me.
That much he had proved, not in declarations but in the way he stayed. In our year together, he had been my anchor. I had delivered our child in his house, under his shadow. Wasn't that proof enough? Or maybe proof was a man's invention, and women like me learned to live with subtler currencies.

When Arjuna told me that once, a small, selfish voice inside me wondered if Kuntī hadn't loved them properly. But then I remembered Kuntī was a woman, and as a woman I could not turn my back on her. She had been both mother and exile, raising her sons into warriors but never bandaging their quietest wounds. They had learned to do that themselves — five boys wrapping cloth around invisible cuts.

I collected these scraps of their lives the way other women collect jewelry. I pushed myself to learn them, to memorize their bruises and their hungers. It was my way of loving them. Even though Arjuna was gone now and I missed him so sharply it felt like a phantom limb, I still had his portrait — a much smaller one than the one I had garlanded before my svayaṃvara. I kept it hidden in the corner of my closet, as if love itself were something that needed to be folded away.

Bheema's heavy footfall broke my thoughts. He burst into the room like a monsoon wind.
"So before you can say something," he grinned, "I have a surprise for you."

I raised an eyebrow. "What is it, dear husband?"

He thrust a bag into my lap.
"Tada! Here you go."

Inside lay an orange saree with delicate embroidery and matching bangles that chimed like secret bells.

"I thought you would like it. Please wear it for me tomorrow," he said, almost shyly.

I smiled. "I love it. I just don't know where I'll keep it."

He chuckled, and I remembered how, since the start of the year, he had been quietly filling my closet with sarees in red, orange, yellow — the colors of Agni, the god who had borne me. Apparently, he thought I looked best swathed in fire. And even though I mostly preferred my pale kānya saris, I found myself enjoying these flames he kept draping over me.

I looked up. He was already watching me. There was a secret brightness in his eyes, like a man standing at the edge of a hunt.

"You know," he blurted out, "I love you so much. You probably have no idea."

I laughed softly. "I know, dear. You tell me every morning, every night, and whenever I am alone."

He made a face, boyish and imploring all at once. "You're supposed to say it back, Kalyani."

And I — Draupadī, fire-born, wife of five, still shy as a girl — blushed. How lucky I was for my dark skin; it hid the sindoor-blood rushing to my face.

So I spoke the only way I knew how, in excess:
"I love you more than the oceans love the sea,
more than the sun loves the seas,
more than the rivers that mix in the sea,
more than a traveller who crosses the sea,
and more than myself."

It was his turn to blush then, and on his fair skin it was beautiful.

I tousled his hair and laughed.

For a moment, life felt easier. Lighter.
But women like me know better than to trust ease. 

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HI GUYS! I'm so sorry for the delay. I was really busy and i hope you liked this chapter. BTW I'm watching this show called Holly Hobbie and it's pretty good. Please read vote and comment. Feel free to give suggestions.