MIRAGE OF HEARTSTRINGS

UNREQUITED EDGES

The routines went flowy. As same as always. Random exchanges with Bhima, unannounced meet with Nakula, slight distanced yet with presence of Sahadeva and no presence of Yudhisthir, all same as from start—but there is something missing Or rather someone.

In the course of few days, something felt out of space for Duryodhana.........and his son too. Even when it shouldn't have.

Duryodhana did not realize when the absence began.

If someone had asked him, he would not have been able to name the day, nor the moment. There had been no clear break, no abrupt change—only a quiet slipping away that went unnoticed, at least by him.

It was Lakshman who gave it shape.

"Pitashree" the boy asked one afternoon, his voice carrying the simple curiosity of a child who had not yet learned to measure his questions, "why hasn’t Rajkumar Arjuna come today?"

Duryodhana did not think much of it at first. His gaze remained fixed ahead, posture unmoved, as though the question had been no more than a passing remark.

“He must be occupied,” he answered.

It was a reasonable explanation. Princes had duties. Warriors had responsibilities. No one was bound to appear every day, at the same place, at the same hour.

Lakshman seemed satisfied and returned to what he had been doing, and the matter should have ended there.

It did not.

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The next day, Lakshman did not ask directly. Instead, he spoke as though continuing a thought that had never quite left him.

"He usually comes during this time, doesn’t he?"

Duryodhana’s response was delayed by a fraction of a second—so slight it could have gone unnoticed.

"Yes" he said.
Nothing more.

Yet, despite himself, his gaze shifted briefly toward the entrance of the training grounds.

It was empty.

He looked away immediately.

There was no reason to look.

In the days that followed, the absence did not announce itself, yet it grew more distinct.

The routine remained unchanged. The same hours, the same movements, the same measured rhythm of training and silence. And yet, somewhere within that rhythm, something no longer aligned.

There was a space that had not been empty before.

A pause where something had once been filled.

Duryodhana noticed it in small, inconvenient ways.

His attention drifting for no reason at all.

A brief stillness in the middle of a thought, as though expecting interruption.

The faint awareness of silence stretching longer than it should.

None of it made sense.
None of it was necessary.

And that, more than anything, irritated him.

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"Did he go somewhere?" Lakshman asked one evening.

Duryodhana exhaled slowly, not quite a sigh, not quite patience.

"I do not keep track of him."
The answer was sharper than the question required.