Dear Draupadi,
You are an incomprehensible character I have ever come across. Is it the valiance you had or the retribution that sprouted or the disgrace you faced or the thirst to become a shaper of history, that makes you stand out? Or is it just all? There are series of questions bundled in my head. Are you the first feminist on earth or are you just pawn in the hands of time as Krishna once said? You had an impeccable vision about ‘everything’ around you just like Arjun had for the bird’s eye, isn’t it?
Why didn’t you let Karna take part in Swayamvar? Well, then it would have been one among a boring princess’s tale I guess. Did you have a thousand butterflies flying inside you just at the sight of him or did you have a thousand wars inside you because of guilt? Weren’t you tormented enough between love for that one man and wifely duties for the other five? Being a feminist by yourself how did you forego the right of choosing your love? I am amazed at how you carried out all your roles just like a river does, quenching every thirst, giving life to everything in and around it.
Did you not crave for a much simpler life without remote love, onuses, heaviness from carrying the weight of history on your shoulders? You were not just the victim of time but of loneliness and many other things. Is the journey from a girl who just wanted love to a woman who only wanted vengeance splendid or spiteful?
Did you feel imperativeness of the destruction and loss- your sons, Dhri, Karna, zillion other foot soldiers? Just like an age-old tree, standing still amidst a catastrophe you transcended whatever time threw at you.
The courage with which you accepted the vision of great war! Not in the might of any ordinary woman. It would have induced a thousand heartbreaks to be a cause and victim at once-everytime you thought you could have chosen karna, every time you thought you could have stopped the war. I cannot thank you enough for the perseverance you imparted.
What kind of life is worth living when you don’t long to live it again, all over!
Just the way you did at your last moment. Maybe that is what you taught us all the while!
Written by: Losini vadhana
