Part 1: Fire and the Forms of Love.
Fire, an element that is too extreme in its nature, when confined to a small lamp, lantern or a prayer-furnace it is a symbol of hope, divinity and warmth but when set free it renders everything found in it's path to ashes. Thus, it's safe to say that fire is kind, hopeful, encouraging and at the same time, impulsive, impatient and vengeful, yet it is considered and revered as the purest element. Such were the attributes of fire's daughter too, her birth gave her the names Yagyaseni (the one born out of a yagya) and Agnisuta (the one born out of fire), her attraction and complexion got her the name Krishnaa (the most attractive/ black or dark), after her land she got the name Panchaali (the one from the land of Panchal) and finally because of her father she got the eternally famous name of Draupadi (the one who is the daughter of Drupad). The elemental daughter being spoken about is Draupadi, the daughter of fire, her struggle is known but what is not known is her tryst with love.
The knowledge and understanding regarding one of the most popular female protagonists of this epic is pretty limited. The common folk (the ever existing breed) know her as a woman who was insulted when an attempt was made to publicly disrobe her, the patriarchal folk (the heavily populated breed) has used her as an example, by considering her as the cause of a catastrophic war for generations to instill fear in the minds of women willing to break free and lastly the feminist folk (a budding breed) know her as an independent, strong-willed, determined, fierce minded woman thus encouraging the women folk to just break the shackles and establish themselves as the equal one-third part of the human species.
It's not easy to understand Draupadi, a character in an epic that's known to be bigger than 10 times that of Homer's Illiad and Odyssey combined, an epic which was hugely dominated by the male population of which she was the female protagonist, various television serials came by and went but the depth was somewhat lacking, the depth that was required to understand the complexities of a character as complicated as her.
Of the various books and novels that I read, I came across a hugely recommended "The Palace of Illusions", by noted author Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. The book made an attempt to narrate the great epic of Mahabharata from Draupadi's point of view, and what better way to understand the character than let that character be at the center and let it express what it felt during these chain of events. The book took paths that were less taken, and narrated in a bold and effective fashion. It did add some myths to this piece of mythology (which is a dying genre) but rather than questioning it, the book enables me to reason with it, not that the book was influential but it just presented what the possibilities were and if my mind had the capacity to include them and fathom deeper than it already did.
It is said that the purest emotion in Mahabharat is the emotion of revenge, the seeds of the famous Kurukshetra war, the infamous game of dice were all sown in the soil of vengeance. Far away from a family feud was a king (Drupad) burning with the desire for revenge against a former friend (Drona) for his supposed humiliation, it was out of revenge that he craved for children that would fulfill his dream of having that friend killed and create a division in the family of the student (Arjuna) who humiliated the king at the behest of the friend. Out of this fire of vengeance came Draupadi, who was destined to create a division in the family of Pandavas and Kauravas.
Being a child of vengeance Draupadi never really experienced love as parent would shower upon its child, for her father she was just an instrument of revenge. The other people close to her gave her everything they felt was love but she couldn't feel it that way. She found protection in her twin brother and later affection and attention from her five husbands but how much of that affection could be called love is difficult to interpret. Her only solace was her dearest friend Krishna. It's noteworthy that when it comes to giving examples of friendship from Mahabharat people only talk about the friendship between the "antagonist" Duryodhan and the grey shaded "Karna", but seldom is the friendship between Krishna and Draupadi mentioned, it could be because of our notion that devotion is the only possible relation between Human and its God, forgetting that sakhya bhav (Emotion of Friendship) is another form of Devotion itself, or because our society has just come to terms with the reality of a genuine platonic friendship between a man and a woman.
This book also brings to light a possible story that people mostly don't know, or they know but they don't wish to talk about it because its controversial to mention, the story of the hidden feelings Draupadi had for the tragic hero and the unlikely villain of the epic, Karna.
Before any judgments are passed, it would be right to say that Draupadi did remain loyal to all her husbands, as it was her exhorting and her motivation that got the Pandavas ready to fight the war. Each Pandav loved her in his own way. Yudhishtir's love was polite, shy and gentle, Bheem's love was passionate and a mild irrational,Nakul and Sahdev's love for her was tender and innocent, and Arjun, the Pandav she cared for and whom she yearned for the most; Arjun's love was cryptic and distant as if he silently declared that if Draupadi couldn't be his alone, his heart wasn't there in sharing her.
However, she couldn't really reciprocate the feelings of the five brothers, at least not equally, they loved her but it wasn't the kind she had longed for since her birth.
The book talks about how her husbands gave her the kingdom and palace that she had desired for and made her the most powerful queen but she wasn't able to ward off the thoughts she had for the man who was her husbands' sworn enemy, the thought that if she had chosen Karna her life would have been better and less complicated. Things were looking better in spite of all this but then the unfortunate event of the game of dice happened and the infamous humiliation of Draupadi at the hands of Duryodhan and Dusshasan occurred. It was in this hour of need that none of the elders of her family came to her help, her husbands who should have protected her, only stood still with their heads hung low, but the biggest blow to Panchaali was given by Karna, when he was revealed as one of the perpetrators of her humiliation. She felt betrayed, for she knew she rejected him but this humiliation was an unexpected ramification of an inadvertent wrong-doing, something that can't be justified no matter what. The feelings that stayed with her, her curiosity about him, the feelings that she not dared to call love got diluted with Karna's desire for vengeance, the vengeance that infected her to desire vengeance.
In the passing years while in forest exile and the incognito period, Draupadi's desire for war and revenge was resolute, she fought with her feelings, for she didn't have come to terms with the situations. She felt betrayed and humiliated no doubt, but when she got to know Karna's truth and the fact that he regretted his actions, a part of her mind that held a grudge against him, felt calm, she could see herself empathizing with him. Her feelings swung between empathy, love and hate during the war, courtesy Karna's dilemma, the undefined attraction and his role in killing Abhimanyu in the war respectively. It was because of these feelings that she was the first one to fall to her death while the Pandavas marched for heaven.
All her life, suffering from humiliation, harassment and losses and also enjoying the status of queen and ruling as an empress, Draupadi always felt that she never got the love she had always longed to get. In an episode from the book she was told by Sage Ved Vyas (the author of Mahabharat) that she would get love but she would never recognize who would she get the love from. When she was all alone and ready to let her soul abandon the body as she had fallen from the mountain, she felt someone's presence by her side, it was none other than Krishna.
She then recalled that when the shameful incident of disrobing happened, the only person of whom she could thing of to soothe her mind and assure her peace was Krishna, who then saved her, she recalled that all the happiest memories of her life at the palace, forest or at incognito involved his presence by her side, she recalled he was always there around to assure her and to look after her, whenever her mind was at distress.
Thus she realized that she did get love, but not from her husbands and certainly not from the man she was attracted to but from her dearest friend, Krishna. So what, if the love was platonic, it was a love that never asked anything in return and was yet hopeful, a love that didn't expect, a love that always forgave, a love that never lessened or changed even if she had changed into someone vengeful, it was platonic devoid of any physical or materialistic desires but it was fulfilling spiritually and existentially. She did see two forms of love, to say in her own words:
"If what i felt for Karna was singeing fire, Krishna's love was a balm, moonlight over a parched landscape."
- The Palace of Illusions
The love Draupadi had for Krishna is defined by many as devotion, but if observed closely, it indeed is the love emanating out of friendship. Draupadi felt entitled for his attention and he always indulged her, he spoke to her in riddles and never really gave out the whole truth, but when she needed someone the most, she could always count on Krishna.
In the end no matter what our perception is regarding Draupadi, when it comes to yearning for love, we are no different from her. We crave for love and when we get it we don't really recognize it. There is a famous line in the book.
"Love comes like lightning, and disappears the same way. If you're lucky, it strikes you right."
There is nothing wrong in craving, yearning or desiring for a particular form of love, but you never know love will strike you in which form, not that the other forms lay dormant, they strike you too, but the form which gives a jolt so energetic that you feel healed, protected, assured and calm in the sea of hardships and pleasures which is this life, is the one worth carrying and reminiscing at the time of death. You may feel you haven't been struck but look closely and think deeply, only then will you feel the exciting jolts of love and thus realize you were long struck by love. We all are eventually.
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