In this episode, we’re continuing the story of the Mahabharat!
If you haven’t heard previous Mahabharat episodes, I recommend you check those out. Here’s a summary anyway of the story so far.
King Shantanu of Hastinapur met and married Ganga, the River Goddess who also happens to be my sister! Ganga, as a condition made Shantanu promise that he never ever question her. Shantanu kept his promise, at least until she drowned her first 7 babies. For the 8th one though, Shantanu decided he’d had enough. So, he stopped her. That had the effect that instead of drowning the baby, she merely with that she did not actually drown the 8th baby. Instead, she merely took him away. She said she’d return the child at some point but never actually revealed when. That left Shantanu waiting indefinitely.
We’ll pick up the story right here.
Every day Shantanu had one routine. And despite being the Emperor of Hastinapur that routine did not include many emperor duties. Shantanu was content to leave it all to his ministers and his deputies. He looked out at the River Ganga. He had had a tower added to his palace, just so he could observe the River.
The fact that his focus was fully fixated on Ganga, was not lost on the citizens of the Kingdom. They were quite aware of this, and in fact they had even had a bet going at all the major taverns. Bookmakers were offering 7 to 5 odds that Shantanu was waiting for Ganga’s return, and 4 to 8 odds that it was his 8th child that he was waiting for. Some suggested he was really waiting for a Ganga substitute, noting that he had not married anyone else in the several years since Ganga left him.
One enterprising bookmakers even offered to take bets that Shantanu was really studying the River in order to solve irrigation problems for his citizens. Ganga was not Nile and Shantanu was no pharoah but who could rule that out? Could well be a long shot coming home for a punter..
But it was just a desperate attempt by the tavern owner/bookkeeper to rescue his dying business. If nothing, the press got a good laugh about it.
It had been several years now since Ganga left. Besides the occasional sighting of a River Dolphin in the Ganga, there was only one interesting thing that had happened to Shantanu. And that was the story of how he had adopted twins!
I don’t mean to imply that Shantanu stared at the River all the time! He did take the time to eat, drink and sleep. As a backup for those times, Shantanu employed people whose only job it was to report any person or persons emerging from inside the River. Pretty easy job it was, especially as Shantanu supplied them Hammocks but also a lifetime supply of energy drinks. All they had to do was call the hotline the moment they spotted anyone emerging from the River.
One day, a soldier walked in to Shantanu’s palace and asked for an urgent audience. Shantanu’s secretary insisted on some paperwork being filled out but the soldier had a very valid excuse not to do so. “Cant you see? My hands are full with these two adorable little babies”. And so they were!
The Secretary fawned over them for a while before finally letting the soldier through.
The Soldier got straight to the point. He had been walkign around the forest, minding his own business, doing Soldierly things, when he heard crying.
Normally, if youre in a dark forest and you hear crying – you should steer clear of it. It is usually a trap. In this case it was a parent trap, complete with twin babies! But there was something very unusual about this scene.
There was a deerskin cloth, a bow, some arrows and of course the twins – a boy and a girl.
Even though the infants had a bow and some arrows nearby with which they could have defended themselves against any wild animals, the solider wisely chose to take them to Shantanu.
Shantanu had a solution of course. Because that’s pretty much bread and butter for Emperors. They were meant to resolve problems like these. Shantanu decided to raise them himself.
He even named them. I’m going to call them “Kripa” and “Kripi”.
Kripa literally means “Pity”, and Shantanu was choosing that because he was taking pity on the babies.
And the girl, “Kripi” would almost certainly lead to playground bullying given how similar it sounded to the word “creepy”.
Forcing the kids through life in Ancient India with appalling names was almost as bad a crime as abandoning them in the forest in the first place.
The Soldier almost regretted bringing the babies to Shantanu. But he could not object.
Shantanu did ask the Soldier to go through the records at the Gumshuda Talash Kendra in Nai Kotwali, Dayaganj to see if anyone reported missing these babies, but no one had.
After some years passed, Shantanu had Kripa and Kripi homeschooled. That was one way of solving the playground bullying problem!
One day, a Rishi showed up at Shantanu’s palace. He introduced himself as Sharadvaan, the son of Gautum. Gautum is a Maharishi, or a VIP of a Rishi, who features in many stories. We’ll certainly encounter him in future episodes.
Sharadvaan also explained that he was Kripa and Kripi’s father. The story was a bit embarassing but he told it anyway. Once, while he was in the middle of a very long prayer project to acquire superpowers, Indra, the chief of the Devs, decided to interfere. Because that’s what Indra does all the time! Some say he wants to avoid superpower proliferation because he’s scared of others becoming more powerful than himself. Kind of like how all the major Nuclear superpowers of the contemporary world have pretty much forced everyone else not to create nuclear weapons, after they built up their own stockpiles.
Anyway, that political view aside, Indra sent down Jaanpadee, an Apsara, to distract the Rishi. And that distraction obviously worked given that Kripi and Kripi were born.
“So I get the Deerskin cloth. That’s standard Rishi clothing so that makes sense. What about the bow and arrows? And more importantly, why did you leave them in the forest?” asked Shatanu
“Ah the bow and arrows! Yes, I’d love to explain that.” said Sharadvaan. “I am quite the expert when it comes to any kind of weapon. In fact I was born clutching arrows. Even the doctors in the maternity ward were shocked.”
“Oh my!” exclaimed Shantanu, “that must have been a very difficult pregnancy for your mother then”
“Oh yes, yes. Anyway, let’s talk about me. And my knowledge of Astra and Shastra, the Sanskrit words for projectile and handheld weapons”.
He had completely ignored the reckless child endangerment question.
Shantanu seems to have forgotten that question as well, because he then proceeded to employ Sharadvaan to teach the very same children whom he had abandoned.
A few more years passed after this. The River watching routine continued.
One day, after several years the King decided to take a rare evening off of river watching. And ironically that was the day something happened with Ganga. The way Shantanu heard about it was from a group of farmers who came to complain to him that the River had been turned off. They blamed it all on Beavers which apparently one of them had partially read about but not fully realized that they didn’t exist in India.
Anxiously, Shantanu headed for the River himself. He asked his appointees who were chilling in hammocks why they hadn’t raised an alarm bell. But they had a quick bureaucratic response – it was because he had only asked them to watch out for person persons emerging from the water, not other kinds of phenomena, natural or artificial. If he liked, they could provide him a detailed report of incremental resources and budget needed to expand their observation targets for the next 3 fiscal years.
Not wanting to get into a protracted argument about that, Shantanu left the scene, promising to circle back to them in due course. Don’t call me, I’ll call you.
When he reached the river bank, he could indeed see that by now the River had dried up. He walked upstream and came upon what indeed looked like a Beaver Dam! Pesky beavers, building a dam on this holy river!
But upon closer inspection, it was clear that these were very intelligent Beavers. They seem to have mastered the art of metallurgy! Because the Beaver dam wasn’t made of wood, it was made of metal, and steel! And standing near it was a handsome youth with a bow and arrow who seemed to be responsible for this.
Shantanu prepared to challenge this youngster. And then the boy turned around and faced him. Shantanu was struck by how handsome he looked and how familiar he seemed. His 8th baby would have been about the same age. Could it be him?
We will leave it here.
Other Mahabharat Episodes
If you want to hear previous Mahabharat episodes, check out Episode 59 – River of Dreams and Episode 60 – Down By The River.
Check out other Mahabharat Episodes too, some of which are peripherally linked to the main storyline.
That’s all for now.
Next Time
In the next episode, we’ll continue the story of Shantanu and Devavrat. We’ll see how Shantanu just couldn’t shake his father’s dying words out of his head. And how tragic it was that he completely ignored his experience with pre-nuptial conditions.