Legends have always presented Draupadi as the Princess of Paanchal or the Queen of the Pandavas. It’s not often that she has been seen as a woman through a kaleidoscopic eye – a mere woman who was born to live a destiny she didn’t design. Perhaps legends could have never viewed her through an introspective lens. That would require an unbiased vantage point where one can look beyond the man-made laws of how a woman should think, act and behave. She was called a kritya for what? For being accepted falteringly by her father after birth? For always being hushed because she was a girl? For being married to five men whom she didn’t choose? For being gifted to be a virgin every year so as to be the lawful wife to each of her husbands equally? (Who could ever understand the trauma that she suffered in the wake of this boon? Draupadi surely must have lamented if it was a boon or a curse. And perhaps the boon was crafted to suit the needs of her husbands). For being used as an item at stake in gambling by her husbands? For being lost in the gamble, and humiliated and manhandled amongst and by her own family? For being vengeful for the misery she suffered? I think it’s the other way round. Instead of her being the harbinger of misfortune, I believe misfortune chose her time and again, and struck her hard.
Draupadi was a mystifying woman with a powerful voice – a voice that I have not heard but can imagine by reading her life story. It was enthralling to comprehend Draupadi’s emotions in several ways – through her tales, her dreams, her fantasies, her desires, and her retrospection. Draupadi’s character has the prowess to bind you to her, and as you read more about her you would effortlessly be drawn into her life. Her story is not an ode to the holocaust of Mahabharata or a eulogy to the clout of womanhood. Neither is it a commentary of her royalty and astuteness. Her story is the tale of a woman, of what hardships she faced, how she handled the tough situations she encountered, what glory she enjoyed, how she lost it, and how she regained it at the cost of uncountable deaths. The princess of Paanchal narrated the saga of Mahabharata, not as a chronological sequence of events but as a wonderful knitting of thoughts. She took me from her present to past, and past to present. I was immersed in her flashbacks described beautifully in the form of dreams and illusions.
A longing can be a lifelong penance. It captivates you in a shell of pining that doesn’t let you out and keeps the craving of the soul intact. Draupadi lived in this shell all her life. Not many of us know about the deep yearning of Draupadi – her yearning for a stunning and lavish palace full of grandeur – the numinous palace that Paanchali lived in after her marriage to the Pandavas, her yearning for fatherly affection, her yearning to be treated equal as her brother, her yearning for true love that she sought in her husbands throughout her life, her yearning to be loved back by the man she fell in love at the first sight, her yearning to be a gush of motherly love to her children, her yearning to be craved by her children, her yearning for a companion with whom she can be Paanchali – the woman, and not Paanchali – the queen. My heart completely resonated with the ups and downs of Draupadi’s tone, and for the first time I realized that a man can never understand what goes on in a woman’s heart. Perhaps he can read her mind, but there is only one in a million who will be able to read her heart. History hasn’t much elucidated this man in Draupadi’s life – the eternal Krishna. I am mesmerized by the beauty of their relationship that is not bound by any name, and undeniably is an epitome of unconditional love. Krishna was her best friend, truly her companion, and her soul mate. He held her hand not to empathize but to support, to love and to stand by her. Their friendship is an example of undying faith and immortal adoration.
Draupadi held me like a magnet, and instilled profound contemplations in my mind. Not only did she narrate the Mahabharata, but also silently narrated the struggle of a woman with her own self. She lived a life she didn’t choose, and continued to combat with fate and family; family if it could be called one. I could not stop from asking myself, “Who is Draupadi?” Is she a fighter who never said die? Is she a warrior who faced challenges with all her might? Well, she is all this, and much more. She is the spirit that resides in every woman. I am not here to blow the trumpet of feminism. I am just thoroughly impressed by Draupadi’s power to nurture deeper thoughts in me. Despite the dishonor and drudgery that she faced I don’t treat Draupadi as an object of commiseration because I have never interpreted her as a symbol of pity. To me she represents passion, strength and courage that is harbored in every woman’s soul – all of which maybe dormant, sometimes subdued and sometimes aloud.
Draupadi’s story has also nudged me to ask myself, “Who is that one person who loves me truly and never asks anything in return?” Well, there cannot be an ambiguous answer to this. It is none other than Krishna, who stands by me through thick and thin. Time and again he stations himself in a friend who sees me as me, who doesn’t judge me for who I am, with whom the complexities of ‘whys’, ‘hows’ and ‘whens’ of life fade into the oblivion, and do not seem to matter anymore.
Panchali.. Is a journey rather, which we all make, and in its wake forget the one who stands by us all along, and yet again when we reach the destination we think where it all began!
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