Draupadi looked at Bhima. Iron-bodied. Mass of flesh was rolled into balls on the body. The curled moustache was shaped like a boat. His eyes had a fierce look with no softness at all. Draupadi was scared to look at the face of the gigantically towering and ferocious figure of Bhima. She never thought that the Second One with the hardness of the black iron would have this much tranquility. In the dim light she saw a faint smile spreading on his big face. Draupadi’s second night. The very Bhima who was a gormandizer, who married a forest-dweller, and one with the look , emotions and gestures of a wrestler. Draupadi who was destined to occupy the position of his wife for a night! She prayed, no woman should be ill-fated as she was! Heinous and contemptuous kind of fate! Mother Kunti was waiting and counting the nights of her sons. When Mother told me that ‘the next day you are Bhima’s’, there was no change in her facial expression. At night when she hastened me to go to Bhima’s room , I wondered if she was not ashamed of herself. After food when I came out, I couldn’t bear the look Parthan cast on me. When I entered the room, in the shadow emerging from the lamp the hugely built Bhima stood like a large banyan tree.
“You were waiting for our night together, weren’t you?”
I did not feel shy. Instead, I felt resentment. At its intensity, I gave a reply to Bhima’s words.
“ Arjuna’s favour. Remember that.”
What do these people think of woman! Is she a mere object for satisfying the lust of men? It’s not her weakness when she surrenders her dreams to his pleasure. It’s her goodness of heart. Why don’t they consider these facts? When will people stop thinking that women are just for the carnal pleasure of men? Nothing is going to end, by burrowing underneath the earth like Sita sinking. Will there be a good time in future ? Will all the fighting earn its good result? Can women boldly walk in the midst of the libertine and debauchers? What do they take for granted? Bodily thirst? Does a woman have only passion? Why don’t they think that she can love only one man in her life? Even when the body is submissive to some external forces, only one man will fill her heart. Only one man will be in her mind.
Bhima did not deserve an answer. Yet, she spoke. Bhima listened to Draupadi’s talk with curiosity. She spoke softly, innocently, and sweetly as the notes of the cuckoo and the swan. Bhima looked at Draupadi’s blossoming flower-like colour, the fleshy and trembling lips, and bud-like teeth. Her eyes were like the black ‘koovalam’. Her eyebrows were like the crescent moon, curving and not too broad. It was a decoration to Draupadi’s face. Her hands were as beautiful as the inside of the lotus, thin with the fingers closely aligned.
Bhima felt, he was as huge as a mountain before Draupadi’s delicate and slender body. She is not to be squeezed and thrown with my strength. Bhima took her cheeks in his coarse hands. He looked into her eyes and said.
“Because of the power of fate and my powerlessness to oppose the elders, I, Bhima also became a scapegoat in this. Not as everybody thinks. Bhima is also an ordinary man. I vow to the witness of the lamp… I promise you that you will never have to be sorrowful for the sake of Bhima. I’ll be a body guard to you always. For ever…and ever”
Draupadi was surprised. His words were beyond her expectation. Whenever he saw her, he used to look at her greedily like a vulgar person,and Draupadi thought he was just like Dharmaputra. When she heard that he married a tribal woman, she hated him. The thought that God decided to make her become the wife of a giant-like, hugely built , gluttonous Bhima made her angry. Her fear had fallen hard like the heavy incessant waterfall. But Bhima was promising her protection and happiness by the fully-lighted lamp. She realised that Bhima’s mind was as large as his body.
“ Mother has never stood against my elder brother. We younger brothers have never disobeyed our elder brother. Because he was like Father to us. No father himself.” Bhima mused on the bygone days, Draupadi looked closely at Bhima. The Kaurava always took it as a joke when they called him Vrukodhhara. Bhima walked to Draupadi.
“ Panchali! No woman will tolerate the humiliation brought to you by Dharmaputra. Arjuna, Nakula, Sahadeva and I know it quite well. But we are helpless. You please live according to your fate.”
Bhima lifted Draupadi as a delicate rose flower. Then without inflicting pain, not allowing any of the petals to fall, very slowly, quite gently, very carefully, with love he caressed her. While she was lying helpless on the cot, in the tender caressing
, the beautiful Panchali’s eyes slowly closed and slipped into a sweet, comfortable, deep stupor. When she woke up she saw the Second One sitting with his eyes fixed on her. With great care and love he stopped her from waking up. Go to sleep. Much more time for the dawn to break. Draupadi felt shy when she realized that Bhima had been looking at her all this while. She covered her face with her hands. He took her hands apart. When he sat looking at her bashful face, he could not hold himself back. While he was falling into her like the roaring waves of the great ocean, he was struggling hard not to inflict pain on the shore.
(Cont’d)
