Chapter-1
The Curse

I am being brought back to in the battlefield again, has to be, going by the nauseating, acrid stench of burning chemicals, the bitter sweet fetor of rotting human and animal flesh and the throes of gruesome death hanging in the air. The aftermath of discharged elemental equations, invoked to cauterize enemies into puddles of bloody melting bones and viscera, always leaves burning chemicals behind. I am blind, at least temporarily; the result of trying to recall a weapon that can destroy the Universe. I should know; I unleashed it to kill a foetus in the womb. I am breathing heavily, as though I need to take in as much air as I can, just in case I don’t get any later. I am uncertain for the first time in my life. I feel so weak, so terrified. It’s the natural corollary of realizing I am a murderer.

The air is stinging my nose and throat. My horse’s come to a standstill. I am can hear my captors dismounting their steeds. I can hear a palanquin being lowered, the creak of wood, the dull thud of the palanquin stands being lowered to the ground. Curtains are being drawn to allow the occupant to step down. I can hear the din of a war camp. Sounds of sandaled feet, friendly arguments and raucous laughter, sword sheaths clinking on body armour.The smell of death is merging with the aroma of meat cooking in red chilli powder, spices and vegetables and the sweet scent of boiling rice and baking Roti. Surely I cannot be in my camp, there isn’t one. It was wiped out. I hear a conch blowing to announce my arrival; I know the sweet lilting tune of the Conch, forlorn declarations, like the call of lonely seagulls. I know what it means; I am heading, actually, being impudently elbowed towards a royal bivouac, a Warlord’s tent. Why am I here? What am I doing, broken and defeated inside the Pandava bivouac…

By all probabilities, I should be dead, executed, but I am being led into the plush carpeted confines of the bivouac, soft and cool against the calloused souls of my feet. Of the tens of thousands, of the legion that was the Kaurava army, only three of us survived. The other two have fled. I didn’t. I wanted revenge. I squeeze my eyes shut for a time and gradually open them. The world is coming back to focus slowly but surely. I widen my eyes, squeeze them shut and when I open my eyes I wish I’d stayed blind. Krishna himself is standing to one side of the tent, emanating waves of power in his seething rage. His dark skin is glistening feverishly and the furls of his pearl blue silk way-stee, flowing down from his hips to the tips of his toes are quivering with static. I can see Krishna in my mind’s eye, opening his arms and drawing the force of the Brahmshira to himself. He was glowing with all the majesty of the Parama-atma as the Brahmshira lashed into him with all the force of a hundred tornados in a flash of brightest light…blinding me.

I have never, in all my years, seen Krishna so angry. His eyes are thunderous, wide and red rimmed as he casts a look fraught with disgust on me. I bow humbly; my heart is hammering under the pressure of what I have done. I am unable to control my shaking hands and thighs. I stand, stooped and trembling on powerless legs, like a chained demon! Bheema, the mighty Pandava warrior is right there, towering over me like an angry and offended beast. I can hear Bheema speaking but it is an echo from a thousand miles away. I shake my head to clear the invisible cobwebs that seem to be smothering me.

“Give me the Shiromani…now” Bheema commanded.

I am staring at Bheema, unsure of what to do next. The proud Pandava warlord is grinding his teeth in rage. His fingers curl menacingly around his huge mace, ready to strike me down.

“Give it up…you have lost all right over it. Give it up O beastly coward for you have brought shame to the exalted house of your forefathers.”
I twist around, hesitant, confused at seeing Vyas, that venerated sage, the trusted advisor of the Kuru dynasty. He is standing to the other side of me, opposite to Krishna. Now I know who was in the palanquin. He is bare-chested except for the fine white thread slung around his shoulders, a symbol of his Brahman background. He’s wearing a simple white dhoti wrapped around his ample midriff. His eyes are kind and soft though he flings harsh words at me.
“I only did what I must to avenge my Sire’s death. Think what you may!”
He smirks at my arrogance.
“See what your anger has brought upon you…if you had only given up on your thirst for revenge as I had adviced, you would not have lived to see this day”
“Is that what you wish for, Master? That I should hand over the Shiromani to the foremost of Mace warriors, to Bheema? If that is your wish, so shall it be my command for I have no purpose now to exist!”
“That is my wish” Vyas decrees solemnly.
I sigh.
My trembling hand reaches for the Shiromani as if on its own accord and my fingers are digging into my forehead, around the gem. No man can pull the gem loose from me for it is part of me. It would retaliate with a power no man could match…save Krishna, but then, he is no man. I am pressing harder to get a better grip of the gem; my fingers tear through the thin padding of skin and flesh. My eyes are stinging from the excruciating pain and my nose is already swelling and blocked. It feels strange, I have never hurt physically in my life till this day though I am a veteran of many battles; the gem I am born with protects me from wounds, pain, lust for women and gold. I persist. I need the pain; it is a relief from the remorse squeezing my heart like a noose made of spikes.

My eyes fall on the mother of the slain children, holding her head in her hands, shedding unbridled tears. Her knotted hair is caked with the blood of a Kaurava royal, a prince who had once hauled a menstruating Draupadi into full court and labelled her a whore. Bheema killed the Kaurava Prince in battle and rinsed Draupadi’s hair with the dead Prince’s blood in keeping with his terrible vow of that day.

I recall happier times, when Arjun wedded her and brought her to the Hastinapore Palace for the first time. So beautiful she was and strong of nature. She seemed to float in, like an Apsara, an angel. I blessed her with long life, children, contentment and happiness and now…I have killed her children with my own hands out of vile spite and petty vengeance. It’s a wonder Bheema hasn’t killed me yet. I can feel his rage; it’s a palpable thing, throbbing around me.

My quavering fingers are plunging deeper into my forehead. I stifle a cry of pain. The searing white hot pain is unbearable. I am beginning to lose consciousness; rocking on my feet. My legs are too weak to support me. I reach out to hold on to something, someone maybe, just to balance myself. None of the Pandavas come forward to lend me a hand…I am tottering alone amidst a group of people who were once like my brothers.

It is Krishna who finally clutches my hand.

Heat! His hands are as fire. The grip is crushing, the hum of power of the Parama-atma, the one consciousness, courses through me, though momentarily, and for that brief moment I see someone in Krishna’s place …my father. He who is my Sire and preceptor has no kindness to shower on me; he is pained and angry though it was the deceitful manner of his death that instigated me to vanquish the Pandavas. They had deceived my father into thinking I was dead. When he had laid down his arms in grief, ready to release his spirit, they had beheaded him.

There are some who argue that my father had given up his life much before his carcass was beheaded and then there are others who boast that he was beheaded when he was helpless. I don’t know the truth, all I know is that it is not possible to stop the unstoppable, kill the undying spirit, or defeat my father in battle. I wanted revenge against the deceitful murder of my Sire, true, but I did not know I was waging a war against young children that night.

Krishna lets go of my hand as harshly as he had grasped it.Tears are rolling down my eyes as I relive the moments of my depravity. I should not have released the Brahmasira. I was sufficiently warned, by my father in the old days and then by Sage Vyas just a few hours ago. I was told that if I unleashed the weapon on human beings, the weapon would not only wipe out the entire human race but would also destroy the Universe. Frankly, I didn’t care. My one motive was the destruction of the Pandavas. So the Brahmsira was unleashed and to counter mine, Arjun had released his own. Vyas and Krishna managed to convince Arjun to withdraw his Brahmsira but I refused until the last moment and then it was too late. The revocation cost me temporary loss of sight because Krishna pushed aside the curtain of illusion, smothering perception and in the resultant flash of ten thousand suns, he absorbed the entire power of the mighty weapon as only he can, thus saving the world from destruction.

With one final wrench I pry the gem loose, imbrued as it is in my blood and fluids. My blood is spurting out of loose flaps of skin and tissue as a crimson fountain, drenching the soft creamy carpet. As a last act of faith, the Shiromani gem heals my forehead almost instantly, leaving behind only an indention on my forehead and a splash of blood on the carpet as reminder of my loss.

I am handing over the gem to Bheema with trembling, blood soaked hands. I am barely able to keep my eyes open through the nerve wracking pain. I look upon his tight lipped countenance and I am still able to recall the fun-loving, voracious Pandava prince I had befriended what seemed like a thousand years ago. In his place all that I see is an anguished and revengeful father. I made him so. I hope he is able to see the pain that I am suffering. I hope he has it in his large heart to take pity on me and slay me with one swipe of his mighty mace.

Draupadi is glaring at me as she takes the Shiromani from the second of her five husbands. Her haunted eyes are boring into my soul, scathing it with righteous retribution.

What has it all come down to? The war changed people, altered their relationships, their characters, their very fibre. Surely, my father would not have wanted me to commit these terrible cowardly murders. I love the Five Pandava brothers and I know they loved me like a brother. It is true that I was jealous of Arjun as a boy; he was my father’s favourite pupil. That didn’t change a thing. I am their Teacher’s son, their friend, I am after all the boy who grew up into manhood in their company, in the shelter of their kingdom...and yet today, there is no mercy in their eyes, just flames of anger. I don’t think the anger’s because I took sides with their cousins, the Kauravas and their claims to the throne of Hastinapore. It is because my father, their revered guru, could not leave my side though he wanted to fight for the Pandavas. It is because I made them kill the one man who taught them everything and because I killed their children, every last one of them, leaving behind only the foetus of their grandchild.

“You have killed my children, great Mage. You have your revenge. I applaud you on avenging your father’s death by slaughtering children who had no chance against you.”
Draupadi’s voice was coarse and harsh from the crying. I am weeping with her, freely, shamelessly. My tears came unbidden. I fall to my knees on the carpeted floor. I am bowing in disgrace. How could I explain it to her? Would the guilt have been any less if I tell her I intended to kill her husbands, The Five Pandavas, those foremost among men, and instead I killed her brave and valiant children by mistake? Can I divulge that I did not intend to kill her children?

Instead, I spoke my mind:
“O grieving Mother, brave daughter of Drupad, decree Bheema to kill me now for I have no will to live anymore” I cry.

My voice is weak and lifeless. I mean for it to be a directive, but the words are garbled, nothing more than a croaking plea. I hear the rasping twang of a sword being unsheathed! She barks a short hateful laugh amidst her tears, and then her grief filled eyes unlock from mine and fix themselves on someone behind me. It’s as though a great burden has lifted off me; those eyes were burning into my very soul, tearing me asunder.

“He is the son of our revered Guru, he is your guru-brother and I respect and revere him, let him go, Arjun” Draupadi decrees instead, for it was Arjun, that umatched Archer, who has unsheathed his worthy steel. A mother’s anguish is for her dead children, she has no use for their murderer. I understand that truth. Its then that Krishna spoke. His voice is thunder, his words, like lashes from a steely scourge.

“You have neither acted as a pious Brahman nor have you acted as a courageous Kshatriya. You have been unfaithful to both walks of life, like a vileful man cheating his wife and betraying his concubine. You will be treated a vulgar born, no more a Brahman or a Warrior Mage. You are an outcast from today and all child killers and child abusers will be treated as you are. You will roam this earth as a vulgar born, with festering un-healing wounds until the the Age of Kal. There will your destiny lead you and then you will atone. Repent every day for your deeds, O lowest among men. You will wander from land to land, hiding in Marshes and caves, living like a despised beast…a base animal of pure hateful instinct.”

I am devastated. I was expecting to be executed…not to carry the wounds in my heart for ever without redemption. I am bowing, this time in acceptance of the inevitable. He who has forgiven the most baseborn of creatures doesn’t find it within himself to forgive me. So be it!

Just as the distraught Draupadi was passing on the gem to Yudistr the Just, the first of the five Pandava warlords, I manage to pick myself up on quivering legs. Already I am forgotten, dismissed from Royal audience. I stagger out of the bivouac into the harsh sunlight, raising my hands against the glare. I evoke a gasp from the guards outside; I don’t blame them, drenched as I am in my own blood. I go my unsteady way as some of the guards head for me and others rush into the Bivouac. They will not bother with me for too long, I am no threat. I am going from the one place I loved more than all else…Hastinapore, from my guru-brothers, my dead Liege, all my friends and enemies who died in the terrible war, and from the memory of those who are left behind, for I have no one who would remember me.

…I leave vanquished and in shame …

I am Aswathaman, son of Drona…
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