Skip to main content

Draupadi’s Dream


Draupadi wants to beget a daughter by Karna. Bilingual poet [Malayalam and English] K Sachidanandan has written a very short story in the latest edition of the Malayalam weekly, Mathrubhumi. Titled Draupadi’s Soliloquy, the story is an implicit lament on the current state of affairs in India.

No woman can accept her fate with resignation when she has five valiant and virtuous husbands and yet has to stand disrobed in front of a couple of malevolent men who have usurped all powers through means more foul than fair.

Of what value is Yudhishthira’s dharma? Draupadi laments. Arjuna’s famed valour is in vain now. Even the devotion of mighty Bheema serves no purpose. Nakula’s dutifulness and Sahadeva’s courtesy are all futile virtues in this royal court where villainous characters have put on the robes of heroes.

What I want is Karna, Draupadi laments to herself. She has seen the flame that burns fiercely in the eyes of Karna. She has felt the ardour of the passion that fumes in Karna’s bosom. Karna can sacrifice not only his kavacha-kundla but also his very self, if she stands in need of it. Let Karna the Outcast come.

I want a daughter by Karna, Draupadi says. To herself. In the world that is driven by a handful of vicious men, how loud can a woman utter her wishes?

Draupadi wants a daughter who will be a harbinger of a new era in which no woman will be disrobed in royal court that is sustained through manipulations and machinations. I want a daughter who will liberate women from men. A daughter who will liberate my husbands from their macho egos. I want a daughter who will liberate my sons from their ancient hubris.

Draupadi wants a daughter who will be able to laugh happily in the world of men. Not stand disrobed by political chicanery.

A daughter whose heart will have abundant tenderness. Also harshness if needed. A daughter who knows that sacrifice is not only a woman’s duty. A daughter who won’t have to beg for a Krishna’s magnanimity. She will be the Sun’s descendant. From her will a new earth emerge. A new earth where all that exists will be sacred: trees and rivers and hills and valleys and caterpillars and butterflies and… 


Comments

  1. magiceyeMay 23, 2024 at 5:52 PM

    Beautiful! Amen.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalMay 23, 2024 at 6:54 PM

      Sachidanandan's original is a lot more beautiful. This is my way of looking at Draupadi through Sachidanandan's story.

      Delete
  2. Vinay NagarajuMay 23, 2024 at 6:11 PM

    That's a nice take - sometimes we don't question the mythology enough - the only thing we can do is be rational and ask questions - whether it is history of mythology, it has to adapt to our time - the morals of an old era might not be valid anymore - glad to see and hear about a book that questions that and makes us think

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalMay 23, 2024 at 6:56 PM

      Not a book, Vinay. It's just a short story. But there are books on this. Let me suggest one here:
      https://matheikal.blogspot.com/2016/03/the-palace-of-illusions-review.html

      Delete
  3. Liz A.May 24, 2024 at 8:09 AM

    If only...

    ReplyDelete
  4. Rajeev MoothedathMay 25, 2024 at 10:14 AM

    Good one!

    ReplyDelete
  5. LeylahAugust 16, 2024 at 9:38 PM

    If it weren't for some mythical stories, we wouldn't have understood whats and whys

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalAugust 17, 2024 at 6:11 AM

      Yes, one purpose of myth is to help us make sense of reality.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
47 comments
Read more

Re-exploring the Past: The Fort Kochi Chapters – 4

The footpath between Park Avenue and Subhash Bose Park The Park Avenue in Ernakulam is flanked by gigantic rain trees with their branches arching over the road like a cathedral of green. They were not so domineering four decades ago when I used to walk beneath their growing canopies. The Park Avenue with its charming, enormous trees has a history too. King Rama Varma of Kochi ordered trees to be planted on either side of the road and make it look like a European avenue. He also developed a park beside it. The park was named after him, though today it is divided into two parts, with one part named after Subhash Chandra Bose and the other after Indira Gandhi. We can never say how long Indira Gandhi’s name will remain there. Even Sardar Patel, whom the right wing apparently admires, was ousted from the world’s biggest cricket stadium which was renamed Narendra Modi Stadium by Narendra Modi.   Renaming places and roads and institutions is one of the favourite pastimes of the pres...
12 comments
Read more

Good Life

I introduced A C Grayling’s book, The God Argument , in two earlier posts.   This post presents the professor’s views on good life.   Grayling posits seven characteristics of a good life.   The first characteristic is that a good life is a meaningful one.   Meaning is “a set of values and their associated goals that give a life its shape and direction.”   Having children to look after or achieving success in one’s profession or any other very ordinary goal can make life meaningful.   But Grayling says quoting Oscar Wilde that everyone’s map of the world should have a Utopia on it.   That is, everyone should dream of a better world and strive to materialise that dream, if life is to be truly meaningful.   Ability to form relationships with other people is the second characteristic.   Intimacy with at least one other person is an important feature of a meaningful life.   “Good relationships make better people,” says G...
21 comments
Read more

Re-exploring the Past: The Fort Kochi Chapters – 1

Inside St Francis Church, Fort Kochi Moraes Zogoiby (Moor), the narrator-protagonist of Salman Rushdie’s iconic novel The Moor’s Last Sigh , carries in his genes a richly variegated lineage. His mother, Aurora da Gama, belongs to the da Gama family of Kochi, who claim descent from none less than Vasco da Gama, the historical Portuguese Catholic explorer. Abraham Zogoiby, his father, is a Jew whose family originally belonged to Spain from where they were expelled by the Catholic Inquisition. Kochi welcomed all the Jews who arrived there in 1492 from Spain. Vasco da Gama landed on the Malabar coast of Kerala in 1498. Today’s Fort Kochi carries the history of all those arrivals and subsequent mingling of history and miscegenation of races. Kochi’s history is intertwined with that of the Portuguese, the Dutch, the British, the Arbas, the Jews, and the Chinese. No culture is a sacrosanct monolith that can remain untouched by other cultures that keep coming in from all over the world. ...
6 comments
Read more

Yesterday

With students of Carmel Margaret, are you grieving / Over Goldengrove unleaving…? It was one of my first days in the eleventh class of Carmel Public School in Kerala, the last school of my teaching career. One girl, whose name was not Margaret, was in the class looking extremely melancholy. I had noticed her for a few days. I didn’t know how to put the matter over to her. I had already told the students that a smiling face was a rule in the English class. Since Margaret didn’t comply, I chose to drag Hopkins in. I replaced the name of Margaret with the girl’s actual name, however, when I quoted the lines. Margaret is a little girl in the Hopkins poem. Looking at autumn’s falling leaves, Margaret is saddened by the fact of life’s inevitable degeneration. The leaves have to turn yellow and eventually fall. And decay. The poet tells her that she has no choice but accept certain inevitabilities of life. Sorrow is our legacy, Margaret , I said to Margaret’s alter ego in my class. Let...
36 comments
Read more