Kurukshetra's Shadow

Book excerpt: Wars are kinder to men, for they are given a chance, in the battlefield, to showcase their prowess at weapons and strategy-making – either to emerge victorious or to die valorously. The very act of fighting a battle washes them off their earthly sins, securing their position in the heavens. But what about the women? Burning silently inside, anxious and afraid, guilty and grieved, passive and powerless, they remain silent spectators of events so momentous that turn their lives upside down. These women lose battles without fighting them. And then they keep burning inside, long after the pyres of the vanquished and the flambeaux of the victorious have fizzled out….. What if Gandhari didn’t blindfold herself just out of devotion for her future husband but at her powerlessness to prevent herself from a fate similar to Amba’s? Did Kunti ever overcome her guilt over Karn? Did Draupadi learn to sympathize with the maidservants and the prostitutes she was compared to in the open court or did she only think about herself? Did Subhadra learn to live with her guilt of having slept off mid-way during Arjun’s explanation of the Chakravyuh? Did the cold-shouldered Hidimba forgive the Pandavas? What must have been going on in the mind of Duhshala, the only princess of Hastinapur, when she had to support her infant grandson while reigning over the empire of Sindhu alone? What about Bhanumati, that unfortunate widow of Duryodhan? Could Uttara the child-widow ever learn to see Abhimayu’s reflection in Parikshit? A story of the unexplored thoughts of these powerful women, who lost inner battles bigger than Mahabharat and struggled in silence to endure with more strength each time life knocked them down!