Who is this Yama Dharma?

I looked up at my mother she frowned down to me. Why are those singers saying elder brother is Yama Dharma son? Mother sushed me signaling her inpatient with a quick rape of her knuckles on top of my head . Elder brother Yudhishitra turned around to stare at me in that very adult disapproving way he had even at age six.

The court singers seated on the raised platform just outside the gate of the Hastinapur sang of how Yudhishitra was Dharma incarnate how he could conquer fourteen Kingdom and emperor.

I giggled at the thought of my elder brother waging wars and conquering kingdoms. When we played our games in the forest, all it took was a push , a poke to make Yudhishitra squeal in pain and run off to complain to mother.

The sun beat down on as the crowd that had gathered around as, staring, whispering , pointing kept growing. Mother carrying Nakulla on her hip and holding on to Sahadeva's hand looked around anxiously. "Where is Arjuna"?

I went out off to look , and found by younger brother perched in one of the chariots lined up just outside the gates. He was holding the reins and pretending to drive , while a watchful charioteer held the horse neck with a handle on the bridle.

I grabbed Arjuna's hand and walked him back to where mother stood waiting with a patience I don't share . Before We set out from the forest that morning the maid has decked us out in silk robes and the heavy gold ornaments uncle dhritarashtra had sent for us. A many tired necklaces that almost covered my chest a circlet of gold studded with pearls on my forehead that was started to pinch, chunky gold.

Bracelets in my wrists, golden band crushed with diamonds around my waist... Now I was sweating profusely and under that all gold and silk I had begun to itch. The balladeers ended their songs to a flourish of the nadaswaram and mridangam. After a beat they started up again and this time I heard them sing my name.

Bhimsen , they sang was born to be strongest man in the universal. They sang that shortly after I was born when mother Kunti was cradling me . I wriggled slipped out her arms and felt on the rock she was sitting.

He is the son of the Vaayu , the God of the wind they sang of me while the crowd pressed even closer pointing at me and murmuring . I heard women say that on the day I was born in jackles had wondered the street of Hastinapur in board day light hawling attacking people at random. Some one else said the rishis who cast my horoscope had told king Dhritarashtra that I was born to distroy the kuru race.

It wasn't good time to ask questions mother's attention was clearly elsewhere she was looking towards to the city gates with relief and anticipation on her face. I turned time to see to the eneroumes gates swing opens. Two men bodies slick into the oil climbed onto the raised platform on their side .

He bend down picked Nakulla and Sahadeva up and swung them on to his shoulder . Mother tooks Arjuna by the Hand. Yudhishitra walked a headforus and as the drumbeat mounted to a frenzy and crowd cheered and called our names we walked through those gates and entered the kingdom mother told us we were born to rule.

Episode 2

It all felt very sudden very strange .

Two weeks ago we were living carefree life in the forest five of us plus father Pandu mother Kunti and cheriyamma madri. Our home was a wooden lodge in the middle of a clearing attended by two maids and a cook.

The rishis and others who lived by nearby were frequent visitors. They referred to father as a king and paid obeisance whenever they came visiting just one more of these things I don't things I don't understand at the time.

There were many such things. My mother often told me I was slow, stupid. So did elder brother Yudhishitra . The difference was that mother always had teasing fond note in her voice in she called the other name , but my brother's comment seemed to be laised with impatience contempt even. And each time he called me those names, I felt the anger bubble up inside me.

Neither of them would trouble to answer my question . If father was a king and We were princess why we living in this small wooden home in the middle of the forest? Where was our kingdom? I never got answers. May be I sometimes thought this whole things about as being princess was a just fairy story.

Living in the forest was a fun. Early each every morning we went swimming in the river through Nakula and Sahadeva only sat on the bank with the maids watching and laughing when I tired to pull Yadhistra under water just to hear him squeal. After breakfast one or the other of the rishis from the hermitage would come over and teach us actually just me and Yadhistra . Arjuna was four and Nakula and Sahadeva just three mantras to say at various times of the day. And the stories from the puranas that had lesson in them about Dharma and all sorts of other things I didn't properly understand or even care too much about.