In this episode, we’re continuing the Mahabharat.
Like most episodes on this show, you need not have heard any of the previous episodes. But it may help if you want more context. Check out the links in the show notes for the earlier Mahabharat episodes.
The story so far.
Shantanu was the ruler of Hastinapur in Ancient India. Together with the River Ganga, they had a baby boy – Bhisma, whom Ganga promptly took away with her to educate.
Several years later, Ganga returned the boy to Shantanu fully educated.
And the boy would have been crowned emperor. Except Shantanu met Satyavati, a boat operator and the two decided to marry. Satyavati’s father mandated that he would agree to the alliance only if Bhisma gave up his claim to the throne. Instead of brushing him off, or negotiating it down, Bhisma agreed. And moreover, he swore not to marry or to have kids. Which goes to show it was probably not a good idea to put him in charge of the Empire’s trade negotiations.
Over time Shantanu and Satyavati had a couple of kids. But their contingency plan was quickly in jeopardy, as first Shantanu passed away and then Chitrangada, the older child.
Without much of a choice Satyavati and Bhishma put Satyavati’s younger son Vichitravirya on the throne, even though he was just a little boy.
Bhishma also took the extraordinary step of kidnapping three prospective queens for the new Emperor. He had to single handedly defeat about a hundred other Kings and their armies, but for Bhishma it was just a regular day in the office.
So we’ll continue the story right there with Bhishma returning to Hastinapur with the three Princesses he had abducted – Amba, Ambika and Ambalika.
Bhishma brought the carriage to a halt and addressed the Princesses – for the first time ironically. “Welcome home, Princesses!”
“And what place is this exactly?” asked Amba
“Why, Hastinapur of course” replied Bhishma a little surprised.
“I am surprised by your surprise” said Ambika. “What did you expect? We can’t be expected to recognize by sight every Tom, Dick and Harry who abducts us. And you haven’t said a word to us all the time we travelled here from Kasi”
“That’s not true” said Ambalika “He did say ‘Bless you’ when I sneezed”
“Well Princesses, I am deeply sorry for that. But my mind was occupied most of the time, by…. I don’t know only a hundred armies that I had to fight single handedly”
“And food!” said Amba. “I noticed you did stop at every Burger Raja joint that we passed”. She was annoyed by his attitude towards.
“Why have you brought us here? And why did you call this home?”
“Weren’t you listening to a word I said at your Swayamvar? I said it on stage into a microphone! Surely you must have heard me”
“All I heard blah…blah…blah…badge of honor…blah blah blah…. me….blah blah blah…Swayamvar….. Blah blah blah…. Me”
“Well, I could just direct you to the previous episode, but I’ll be the good guy here. I have brought you here so that you can be Queens of Hastinapur. You are to marry Emperor Vichitravirya”
Amba was stunned into silence. She still had her mind set on being with her lover, her secret fiance – King Shalva. A rapidly diminishing possibility after she’d seen him humiliated by Bhishma twice. Once at the Swayamvar party and again on the battlefield.
Ambika and Ambalika seemed a little more optimistic. They had not much of a preference at the Swayamvar. I mean they couldn’t even tell some of those cookie cutter Kings apart. But this seemed promising to them. Hastinapur was the strongest and largest empire – that was the word on the street.
And from what little they had seen of it, it seemed much more prosperous than Kasi.
To be the Queen of the greatest empire known to people – that was tempting. And Vichitravirya must be powerful himself indeed if he had Bhishma on his side. Imagine – the Emperor must be so powerful that he could confidently entrust tasks of this magnitude to his underlings. I mean if this one guy Bhishma could single-handedly do what he did, the Emperor must be even more powerful even just to be Bhishma’s superior.
Well you probably can anticipate the disappointment that lay in store for them.
Bhishma escorted all three Princesses into the palace and went off to fetch Satyavati. That left the three princesses fidgeting in the waiting room.
“Why are we meeting Satyavati? I thought we were going to meet Vicky” said Ambika
Seeing the puzzled expression on her sisters she added “Don’t expect me to call him VitraVicharya whatever his name is”
“You are right. Vicky is easier” said Ambalika after some thought.
Amba’s patience was wearing thin by this point. She was about to explode now.
“I cant sit here waiting to meet this Vicky guy. I should be out there with Shalva”
She would have said more but just then a child appeared in their midst.
At last, a chance to get some information thought Ambika. I’ll have to be tactful she thought. The first thing to do is to establish trust.
“Hello there young lad” she said addressing the boy. She held out both hands fists closed. “I have a shiny gold coin for the clever lad who can tell me which hand I’m holding it in”
The boy looked puzzled. “Why would I want a gold coin?”
“Well maybe you can buy yourself something nice”
“Something nice?”
“Yeah, like a shiny new cricket ball. Or maybe a doll if you prefer those. Seriously anything you want, if your parents approve it”
“I don’t want a cricket ball. I have lots of those. And I’m too old to be playing with dolls. My Nanny says I’m grown up now”
“You’re never too old to buy yourself something nice. Here I’ll just give you the coin. I just need some …. information.”
The boy frowned “are you asking me to snitch on Bhisma? I won’t you know. You had better not be spies, or I’ll have you jailed”
Before Ambika could ask the next question, the answer presented itself. Because just then Satyavati and Bhishma walked in, and Satyavati said “Ah princesses, I see you have already met Vichitravirya”
“This?! This is Vicky?” exclaimed the three sisters pretty much in unison.
“Are these my new friends mummy?” asked Vicky
“Yes dear boy. Do you want to show them your room. You’re going to be sharing those rooms after all”
“Wait a minute. I’m calling timeout! This is Vicky?! Bhishma abducted us so we could marry him?!”
“Hey! I’m an expert at math. I got 100 out of 100 in my multiplication test yesterday! You better show some respect here. And anyway, you shoud be calling me Your Majesty! My Nanny says if someone doesn’t I can have them put in jail. You know just last week I had my geography teacher jailed.”
Amba’s anger had reached boiling point now. Her sisters could stay here if they wanted to, but she was done. She wanted out of there as soon as possible. “Queen mum, Bhishma and your grown up majesty” she began. “There is a terrible miscarriage of justice here”
“Yeah, I agree” said Satyavati “Personally, I had my money on the History teacher being jailed first, but you know it’s Vicky’s decision has to have a say. He’s the emperor after all”
“No! I’m not talking about teachers. Or Vicky. Leave them out of this. The problem here is that I’m already engaged. I was supposed to marry Shalva before Sir Galahad here leapt in to what he assumed was my defence” she said indicating Bhishma.
“Shalva?! You’re picking Shalva? And despite everything that happened? And why didn’t you tell me this earlier?” Bhishma’s said with rising anger
“Oh that’s valuable feedback. Maybe I’ll try and pour my heart out and explain my life story to my kidnapper the next time I get kidnapped”
Satyavati had to intervene. “Bhishma, she has a point. We must set this right. Escort her back to Shalva please”
Bhishma was sulking now. “She can go by herself. Shalva will probably run away if he hears I’m coming. I’ve already embarrassed him enough”
Satyavati shook her head and signaled to a guard to call a cab. A luxury one.
Amba’s mood changed at this point. It was not as hopeless as she had imagined. She was soon going to see Shalva again! Oh golly – they could have a grand wedding.
Tearfully Amba bid farewell to her sisters, but these were tears of joy. She also thanked Satyavati and insisted that she would most certainly want her to be present at her upcoming wedding to Shalva. She would be sure to mail the cards out as soon as they fixed a venue and all that. Grudgingly she forced herself to shake Bhishma’s hand. “Catch you later” she said but it was clear to everyone she did not mean it.
Ambika and Ambalika had meanwhile made up their minds to stay. Things would not necessarily be terrible for them. Vicky was a boy. He would grow up, but there was time enough for them to mold him. They could be the real powers behind the throne!
Amba arrived at Shalva’s palace in high spirits. But Shalva did not seem to be in a pleasant mood. He should have been happy to see her. But he wasn’t.
His first instinct was that this was Bhishma trying to score a hat-trick. First he’d nailed Shalva to the ground at the Swayamvar. Well, he’d nailed his footwear, but that was a technicality. The humiliation was obvious. A second time, on the battlefield Bhishma had again brushed him aside like a fly. And now, obviously he had engineered this third humiliation. For Amba to be sent back to him as if out of pity.
The chauvinist that he was, Shalva thought nothing of Amba’s feelings and calmly said he wasn’t in the market for a marriage. And certainly not to a Princess who had been won fair and square by someone else.
“Shalva, am I prize to be won? Fair and square, my foot. There are no rules here and you know it. You’re just making this nonsense up”
“Unfortunately Amba I’m not. Here have a look at my copy of the handbook on Male Chauvinism for the Ancient Indian Royals. Chapter 7 – Swayamvar rules. Look at Section 7.3 – if the benefactor of a Swayamvar were to be abducted by a Royal, the aforementioned benefactor is obligated to marry the Royal abductor”
“That’s rubbish. And why does a handbook for men get to decide what a woman should do? Oh never mind that – that’s what the book is for” she said, and her expression changed from angry to dejected.
“Yup, if it’s in the book I have to stand by it” said Shalva “Your best bet is to go back and get Bhishma to marry you. I can call you a cab”
There was no way around this for Amba. She was in a bind. There’s no way Shalva would do anything that wasn’t in the guidebook. She really would have to try her luck with Bhishma.
Maybe he had the same guidebook. And you know what, having a guy like Bhishma for her husband might not be a bad idea. He was clearly the most powerful person in the world.
As for their earlier coolness that could be dealt with. She could take him some flowers or something.
Unfortunately, flowers did not make any difference to Bhishma. Amba didn’t know this, but Bhishma was Bhishma because of his vow to never ever marry. It was a promise he had made to Satyavati’s father to get his approval for Satyavati’s marriage to his father.
Bhishma would not break the promise. No matter what. And he had no problem in calling out the Chauvinist handbook for what it was – a piece of trash that wasn’t worth the tree bark it was printed on.
Amba was annoyed. From her perspective she began feeling this was turning out to be a massive joke at her expense. Shalva and Bheeshma were playing ping-pong with her, quite like how Ram and Laxman did with Shoorpankha. With one major difference – Amba was the good guy here, and it was Shalva and Bhishma who were being mean here. More so Bhishma than Shalva.
Somehow, no one suggested that Vicky could marry Amba too. He was already queued up to marry Ambika and Ambalika in a few years, so why not Amba too?
Bhishma meanwhile was going on and on about how Shalva was a decent guy and he might come around to the idea of marrying Amba after all. Amba raised a hand to stop him mid-sentence. She said with carefully measured words: “It is clear to me that the real crime here is yours, Bhishma. You are responsible for ruining my life. You will pay for this”. She turned around and stormed out of the palace.
If Bhishma had attempted to calm her or negotiate a solution – things would have been different for him. But no. He’d made his mind up. He could be really stubborn when he wanted to.
No one heard from Amba again. Her sisters were worried about her for a little bit. Before they completely forgot all about it and immersed themselves in living the life of Queens without any of the responsibility.
But tragedy would soon strike this family.
A few years later when Vicky was still in the prime of his youth, and supposedly in the pink of health – he wasn’t. After a particularly exhausting day – the life of an emperor is never easy – he collapsed. The Emergency Medical Personnel arrived on the scene right away, but it was already too late. He had passed away. It was a sad moment for the family. Maybe not for Vicky’s Geography teacher who was finally let out of prison.
The big question confronting this family however was the same one that had plagued Shantanu for several years earlier in the story. Who would be the next ruler? Vicky had passed away childless. And there were no eligible candidate for the post of Emperor. Bhishma was Shantanu’s son and he was around, sure, but he had promised not to sit on the throne.
Technically there were other Shantanu relatives too who could have sat on the throne but you see – it would have to be a descendant of Satyavati’s who would be on the throne. That was part of Bhishma’s promise too.
Well, necessity is the mother of invention. So it was fitting that when the necessity arose, it was Queen mother Satyavati who invented a solution. But we’ll cover that in a future episode.
Notes
We do see however a bit of a pattern emerging. The throne of Hastinapur is kind of like the position of the Defence against the Dark Arts teacher in the Harry Potter universe. Every time you open a new story there’s a new person in the post.
Other Mahabharat episodes are here
Next Time
We’ll do a folk tale from South India. It may remind you of Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves. Except this one is Chandalekha and the 8 thieves. There are major differences too, so tune in next week and find out!