MeToo: J’accuse

It is a world out of bounds for time and space; a world beyond man’s perceptions and precepts. Timelessness and spacelessness are major hallmarks of the worldless world – a deep, dark recess in the womb of Nature where prohibitive social customs and restrictive taboos are totally alien.

From a dark cave, a pair of gentle feet come out timidly, anklets making magically melancholy sounds. The eyes roving, arms bereft of usual ornamentation, body covered in a simple cotton sari and lips pale and weary, Draupadi comes out into the open.

Stepping slowly down the muddy stair, she seems to be casting about for something she doesn’t know she is searching for. None there! Around are totally deserted woods with no birds chirping, no animals roaring, no humans trafficking… life seems to be at a standstill, the eerie silence is constantly broken by the cascading silvery falls a few yards away.

The splashing water looks like a vertical container of tears Draupadi had shed for centuries in the just gone Dwapara Yug.

But she wants to record her nightmarish experiences, mostly of sexual harassment and of woman’s slavery. For the posterity to know about her, not as a divine yajnaseni (woman born out of the celestial sacrificial fire), but as a woman who, too, was not spared the cruelty of the male-dominated society, its mores and values.

A big palm leaf flies toward her from nowhere and lands at her feet as if divining her inner wish. Along with it comes a writing stick made of peacock’s feathers.

With tresses of hair again unbundled and spread over her back, looking like a dark cascade, she bends down on the massive leaf and starts writing, teardrops clinging on to her eyelids like tiny pearls and falling one by one down on her right knuckle. Ages gone since the Armageddon… all creatures, all beings near and dear to her… all gone, devoured by the thirsty jackal of War.

Now it’s time for a woman who was made to pay the heaviest price for setting right the injustice meted out to her, who was left at the mercy of the male-created values, who forcefully danced to the tunes of the male-written sastras (ethical codes)… no better time to record the indelible scars on her psyche, inflicted by men loving her and men hating her and men harassing her.

A woman owned by five men, and yet who owns none of them!

A woman, who was asked unabashedly to sit on the thigh of her half brother-in-law in the open royal hall, great sages, learned men and warriors being silent spectators…..

A woman who was disrobed by another half brother-in-law in full public view in the celebrated court of Hastinapur……

I should record all; record all things that expose the hypocrisy of the men who paid lip service to lofty values…..thinks Draupadi, her feathery pen vibrating with her inner turmoil.

“Arjun! Of all Pandvas, how I loved you in the depths of my heart….My eldest husband Yudhisthir pointed that out as my chief failing while we were all climbing up the Himalayas towards heaven and when I fell on the wayside….How people scoffed at me for being the wife of five hubbies! No one including the Almighty can’t fathom the depths of a woman’s heart… the woman’s heart is the only place free from cares, free from societal norms, free from cruel customs, taunting traditions, free from all pangs of conscience….

“Idiots! They said I was the wife of five; nay; six. For, Karna was all along seated in the lotus of my pure heart…his large ear-rings mysteriously shining and coat of arms emitting rays of royal pride, his composed face romantically angled…how it felt like floating in the clouds when I saw him at my swayamvar (a ceremony where a royal bride can choose her bridegroom). Finally, by some quirk of fate, it turned out that technically as per the advice of my mother-in-law Kunti, he too was one of my husbands…

“But I couldn’t forget his teasing words when Duryodhana and Dussasana molested me.. ‘O handsome one, select thou another husband now – one who will not make thee a slave by the gambling. It is well-known that women, especially that are slaves, are not censurable if they proceed with freedom in electing husbands. Therefore, let it be done by thee….’

“These were the words Karna spat on me; on my womanhood; in fact, totally an anti-woman comment from a misogynist that he had perhaps become from her inner seething anger against his mother who had begotten her illegitimately and hence abandoned him floating in a casket in the river…The words had gone with the winds of yesteryears; but the scars have seared my soul so deeply that I still carry them as babies in arms. Karna! The man for whom I had a blossoming heart the blood of love is coursing through…you too joined the hordes of men out to outrage women….

“I can pardon Keechaka in Matsya kingdom, brother-in-law of Virata king and brother of queen Sudeshana, who tried to molest me when we went incognito during the 13^th year of our exile. That guy on the pretext of wooing me made me pour him wine and entertain him; then he brazenly tried to sexually harass me… he was an openly professed criminal. Duryodhana and Dussasana were evil-minded anti-woman demons… it was an open secret…

“But what about my husbands and you, Karna as well? I am shuddering to think how sastras framed by the greatest sages will debunk me if I openly acknowledge my deepest love for you, Karna….I remember how sage Jamathakni asked his son Parasuram to chop off the head of his wife, Renuka, for the simple reason that she had eyed some handsome ghandarva (celestially beautiful man) with a tinge of lust and so, she could not make a pot out of the river sand to fetch water, as she used to (making a pot just of some sand was regarded as the major hallmark of a wife’s chastity and fidelity!)… I wonder how a simple deviant streak of thought crossing a woman’s heart could spell her infidelity…the sage branded her as a harlot! Alas! Her head was chopped off by her own son…..”

Pausing for a while, Draupadi raises her head and the lonely moon encapsulated in a globularly whitish fire seems to empathize with her, caressing her head with its loving arms of rays. Her lips murmur:

“An angel’s single teardrop is frozen into the moon. Whither are the eyes that have left behind a big teardrop on the cheeks of the sky? Whither gone the unknown angelic woman, hounded by men and their values?”

“Each of my husbands got his own wife or wives. But I was the common wife; no exclusive husband for me. Arjun endowed with the Khandeev bow had Subhadra, Ulupi, and Chithrangada as his wives. When Subhadra entered into our palace, how I felt jealous; how I shed tears in the washroom alone….how I spat on the men-crafted ethical system, my lips dripping with tears and saliva!”

Draupadi’s writing stops as she feels a cool touch on her mane and turns her head. Her eyes widen in disbelief.

Bheeshma!

The great sage of the Kuru dynasty. Who laid his life, lying on his back on the bed of arrows in Kurukshetra; who delivered a long discourse known as Bheeshma Geeta!

She stands up, hands folded in a Namaste. The whitish beard flowing down to chest, reddish hair on head flowing down to meet the beard, chest covered in shields, silken garment tied around waist, the sage wipes her tears and says: “My dear grand-daughter! Ages have gone by; all have vanished into time. You are still bearing all men grudges. Forget all, my dear child. It is a timeless time now; worldless world; no forms; no feelings; and no human traffic anymore.”

“Sire, yet I am unable to put behind me all pain, all anguish. I am not yet fully avenged. I wait for what feels like an eternity to come to terms with whatever had happened to me…..”

“Dharma prevails in all ages… We are, in fact, at the cusp of the Kali Yug. As a woman, you have been pouring yourself in words. But in the days to come, you will be worshipped as a deity as good as Sita. Our dharma will continue in all ages to come.”

“You mean the dharma which is always discriminatory against women?”

The offensive tinge struck Bheeshma like a thunderbolt. “Nay, my dear! Women are divine; though they continue to be harassed by men, they will always be venerated.”

“No,” shouted Draupadi. “We had better be treated as equal human beings. Neither as goddess nor as beasts.”

“Shed your misunderstanding. All rivers in this Bharatvarsha (Bharat kingdom) are named after women. How our dharma celebrates women! Don’t you know, eh?”

“So, as rivers, we are prone to pollution.”

“Women cannot be polluted. Women are respected and worshipped….”

Bheeshma turns his head in shock as a wild thunder-like laughter rends the air. Draupadi too turns to trace the origin of the offensive noise.

The laughter is followed by a cryptic statement in stentorian voice: “A great pro-woman comment from an anti-woman sage!”

Bheeshma is taken aback. Shikhandi! Neither a man nor a woman. Or a former woman and now a transgender. One who took the sage’s life with the help of Arjun to avenge what she considered as the wrong done to her by the great learned warrior. How come she is here!

“Shikhandi!” shouts Bheeshma.

“Nay. Amba, a woman, a veteran in harassment at the hands of men.”

“I know you still think I am a sinner. For that, you have already avenged yourself on me in the Kurukshetra Armageddon…you still haunt me?”

“For ages I will. Even in the impending the Kali Yug, I will. My name and form may change and you too may change your shape and substance. In whatever name you are celebrated, I will haunt you in whatever form I may take. Draupadi has just written her words in the manuscript. She has undergone ordeals as a woman. Me too. Howsoever you are celebrated and venerated as a great sage of learning, wisdom and archery; howsoever glory sits quite comfortably on your broad shoulders; the great sin, the unforgettably nightmarish wrong you did to me, can’t be washed clean even with the waters of the Ganges. Yonder, see my words engraved on the dark sky… to the naked human eyes, they are just stars. But being a great sage, you can read with your third eye of wisdom.”

Bheeshma looks up at the blue velvety sky, the stars metamorphosing into words in the language known to him too well.

“I am Amba. O Elements! Hear my tale of woe. I was yanked out of the royal life I was leading in the palace of Kashi king, along with my two sisters Ambika and Ambalika….The glorious sage Bheeshma kidnapped us, the three daughters of the king, at our swayamvar. He wanted to marry us all to his step-brother Vichitraveeryan, born of his father Santanu and step-mother Satyavati. But I was loving deeply Salva, king of Saubala. But as I was in love with Salva, Vichitraveeryan rejected me, marrying my two sisters. When I went back to Salva, my beloved king, my soul-mate, and the apple of my eye, outright washed his hands off me. How I ran from pillar to post!...”

Bheeshma stops reading and turns his head to stare at Amba. A sardonic smile flitting across red lips, Shikhandi, wearing red silken garments and tilak shining in the middle of her forehead, contorts her face and nods, as if telling him to go on reading her story.

“Three men showed lack of sympathy. None of them was willing to marry me, each citing his own reason. They all wrecked my life. The kidnapper said he could not marry me because of his celibacy vow; the lover cited the reason that I was touched by the other male; and the man for whom I was kidnapped said he could not marry a woman whose heart and soul were with some other man. All male trash…. As if they were all pure, they expected purity from women. How they drove me to woods… Forsaking royal comforts, I was on penance in jungles, in the icy colds of the Himalayas… I was roaming about like a dream thrown out of the bounds of eyes….all thanks to the men, their ethical system. Mine is a classic case of harassment at the hands of men.”

Bheeshma’s head droops as Draupadi and Sikhandi are gazing at him.

The rustling of plants and the vibration of earth jolt them out of a moment-long silence. A little away from them, they all see a speeding deer trailed by an equally speeding and roaring tiger.

A sudden flow of blood into Shikhandi’s face glows red; she pulls out a bow from her shoulder and an arrow from the quiver clinging on to her back. Aiming sharply at the ferocious tiger, she shoots an arrow. It hits the bull’s eye. Deer turns its head and gazes at the fallen tiger in disbelief and at the fiery eyes of Shikhandi in gratitude.

The sage stands frozen.

“Me too had the same nightmares” - a voice thunders.

All three turn to find Ambika followed by Ambalika coming out of some bushes. They are haggard and weary. Wearing silken garments in tatters and no ornaments on, they look like ghosts of their previous selves.

Ambika stares at Bheeshma and says. “Today is the doomsday; that is, judgment day. It’s neither the Dwaparaka Yug nor the Kali Yug. A transitional phase where your morals, your ethical system, your network of varunas and your concepts of woman’s chastity and your male chauvinism no longer hold good.”

“J’accuse” said both in unison.

Bheeshma throws them a lethal stare. Women used to being confined to zenana, to tearful lamentations, ignorance, lack of wisdom, servitude to husbands, and backseat living are now breaking out as a volcano, now that there are no more human habitations and no more systemic and systematic curbs and controls.

As if catching his inner voices, Ambika says, “In the ages to come, women will rise up against people like you. No more confinement to sequestered quarters or stables…”

Ambalika interrupts her and says, “You teach morality to women and immorality to men.”

Bheeshma, who feels peeved at the crisp comment, says with a tinge of anger: “What’s the proof?”

“Proof?” says Ambika. “The Vyasa episode.”

Bheeshma’s brow is furrowed with a sense of incomprehension. He raises his face as if asking for an elaboration.

Deciphering his gesture, Ambika continues, “Don’t you know? After your step-brother’s death, your step-mother and our mother-in-law forced Vyasa to sleep with us so that the Kuru dynasty will flourish with progeny. But no one cared about what we felt about it, nor did they try to get our consent. We were wives of Vichitraveerya and our children’s father was Vyasa. How you changed us!”

“That was dharma called Niyoga. The rule was when the couple had no issue, the woman, with the consent of her husband, can sleep either with his brother or with some great sage, only to beget children. Mind you, that was not for any sensual pleasure but for perpetuating the generation, or procreation.”

The sisters burst out into laughing.

“How it felt nauseating when the sage’s bearded body covered me. A woman, your dharma used to say, should not allow any alien man to touch her, let alone enter into her heart. But in our case, your dharma was twisted on the pretext of begetting children. So, if it suits your dharma, you can relax the strict morality for women. And you know, my feeling of disgust led me to close my eyes during the weird fornication and that led to the birth of a blind son – Dhritarashtra,” says Ambika.

Ambalika takes over where her sister leaves. “Me too had same experience. Out of fear, I had sex with the sage. I turned pale and so my son Pandu was born with a pale skin, a sort of skin disease.”

“That is the end of the story, eh?” says Bheeshma.

 “No. The story is yet to end.”

A sudden voice from nowhere descends on them. Their glances travel across to the spot near the falls.

A woman in tattered rags and seemingly of low caste stands, head now erect, and yet eyes wet with tears welling up.

She draws close to them.

Ambika and Ambalika embrace her, caressing her head.

“I am Parishrami,” she says, folding her hands in a Namaste towards the sage. “I was the maid to Ambika ma’am. I too was not spared. I was forced into sex with Vyasa and begot Vidura. But my son was insulted in the Hastinapur court as the son of a bitch,” she says, moved to tears.

Bheeshma says, “You’re a woman of low caste. We allowed the mingling of a Kshatriya king with you simply for the reason that we wanted a Kuru child without the defects of blindness that Dhritarashtra had and the pale skin that Pandu had. That was how we got the great Vidura, a sage and a warrior. What you did was not a sin you were forced into, but a sacrifice to the God. It was a sacrifice as divine as the birth of Draupadi who was born out of a yagna to establish dharma. And so….”

Before he finished, a voice thunders, “All trash; you, your god, your yagna, your dharma…. All these are only to suppress women and lower castes.”

As all faces turn towards the same direction, they happen on a sage coming towards them in the midst of goats.

“I am Charvaka whose voice was muffled to the point of extinction,” he says, drawing close to Bheeshma.

Their fiery eyes, silvery beards, garlands of rudraksha and ring-studded ear-lobes set them apart, coming as they from the world of the learned.

Hands folded in a greeting, Charvaka keeps penetrating into the red lotus-shaped eyes of Bheeshma – the eyes of a great sage, a great philosopher and a great foreteller….. and a great murderer too! Thinks Charvaka, intensifying his gaze as if he is trying to read the thought currents flowing as gently as the beard in the mind of Bheeshma.

“How dare you call me a murderer,” asks Bheeshma, face suffused with reddish anger.

“How many you did! Didn’t you?” says the other philosopher. “When I told the triumphant Yudhisthir that his new found crown was a symbol of sin, a byproduct of massacre of tens and thousands of men and tears of scores of windows, tormented and harassed women, was it not you that silently set all Brahamana priests and sycophantic minions on me? Was it not you that ruined the life of Amba? Was it not you who were a silent spectator to the disrobing of Draupadi? Was it not you cultural policemen who exploited women in the name of dharma and sastras?...”

“Stop all this nonsense,” roared Bheeshma, “You, blasphemer! You, rakshasha! You’re an atheist who is too immersed in earthly life and its pleasures to think of the God. It was your sacrilegious tongue that brought ruin upon you. Not the Pandvas’ priests and soldiers. Wherever you people are born, in whatever ages you people live and preach your damned materialism, there will be thousands of Bheeshmas born to kill you, no matter it is violence. Blood of asuras is a nivedhan (dedication) to our beloved God.”

Charvaka smiles, still fixing his stare at the bewitchingly twitching beard and itching fingers of Bheeshma and says, “Our philosophies part, first address the woes of these women. Do you mean to say they were all destined by your beloved god to lead the miserable life that they did?”

“You, a mean human being, can’t decipher the divine secrets, holy framework of the universe which are buried so deeply in the bosom of the Almighty. Who’re you to these women? Advocate, supporter or god-father?”

“Neither of them. I am just a human being questioning your system of beliefs that always exploits the people in the name of god. All these women, whether royal or of the common breed, are always slaves left at the mercy of the dictates of your so-called system. Now, see there… one more woman coming.”

In the direction Charvaka points, a woman of slender frame is coming towards them, steps measured, eyes moist with grief and face looking wan. She greets them all with hands folded in a Namaste and stands a little away from them.

“Sire, do you know who’s this?” Charvaka asks Bheeshma, sardonic smile adding to the mischievous look on his face.

The venerated sage’s head moves left to right, indicating his ignorance.

“Tell your name and your story too,” Charvaka asks the woman, turning to her.

“I am Sugadha, Gandhari’s maid.”

Bheeshma raises his face and fixes her with a look that shows his memory surfacing. “O, Mother of Yuyutsu.”

“Is it all?” Charvaka says. “A woman of Vaishya varuna. Forced to sleep with your brother, the king of Bharatvarsha. Dhritarashtra the Great.” He begins to laugh to the last decibel unit. The acoustic waves unnerve Bheeshma.

Charvaka continues: “Yuyutsu is technically the 102^nd child of the king. Yet, his mother, this Sudagha, was not the queen equal to Gandhari. How will your system of dharma justify it? Don’t you think it is a wrong left totally not addressed, nor redressed. How many women like this, whether rich, or poor or royal, have been languishing in silent grief over the injustices in this divine country?”

“That’s their karma”

“Trash. All about heaven, hell, god, and yagna are your ploys to keep women and the lowly people always slaves.”

“I warn you. You may have to pay heavy price for your profanity.”

“Never mind. Today is the day of judgment; you supposed to be the greatest sage have to answer the questions these women have raised.”

Bheeshma walks away in a huff, leaving behind all staring at his back his tresses are flowing down to and a quiver attached to.

Right in front of him appears a dazzling light slowly landing from the spaceless space. Yellow garments with less ornaments, eyes elegantly etched as a pair of black grapes, slim-waisted shape set her apart. All eyes are on her, stunned and petrified.

Charvaka mutters to himself: Ahalya.

Bheeshma turns to Charvaka, catching his words.

“A woman par excellence, one of panchakanyas (five celestial virgins), the last word on feminine charm and the most disgraced and maligned devakanya (divine virgin) to boot,” Charvaka says loud enough to reach all ears.

“A lady from the Treta Yug. I know what you’re going to say. But your injustice was set right already by Lord Ram. What’re you doing here?” Bheeshma shoots words at her.

Ahalya stands erect, her whole frame exuding an air of confidence and self-assurance. “Of course, the wrong done to me by whom you worship as King of Gods was set right by another God. That Yug is behind me. All personages and events have gone back into the womb of air.  But a woman’s wronged mind and scarred and scared spirit will never die and can’t sink into oblivion. This is the occasion for me to record my story so that women in the impending Kali Yug will learn lessons or get inspiration to come out and fight the male-dominated system.”

Charva’s lips light up with a welcome smile whereas Bheeshma’s get darker with angst and anger.

“But I am not the right person for you to tell your antediluvian tale.”

“If your ears are not ready to hear, I will recount my story to the winds and the women here.”

The ears of Draupadi and other women bristle with curiosity and are readying to hear a narration.

“When a woman is in distress, she can turn to the God for shelter and relief. But if the God himself harms a woman, to whom will she turn for help? That was what happened when Indra, bitten by lust, sneaked into my hut and molested me. My husband Gaushika Maharishi cursed me to change into stone. The victim was made immobile and the perpetrator let off with a simple curse. And there are people who make tongue-in-cheek comments on my character. How come a faithful and chaste wife did not distinguish an alien’s touch from that of her husband? The moment Indra started stealing into her, she might have given in, fully aware that it was not her husband. This is how people cast aspersions on me, accusing me of adultery…”

“See, past is past. That is a story of the hoary past. The crime happened eons ago. Not becoming of you that you charge Indra again.”

“But my questions were left unanswered though the situation was resolved. When a sage with immense wisdom could not tell the difference in prahars (eight parts of a day, each meaning three hours) as he mistook the time for the ‘brahma muhurt’ (dawn), fooled by the crowing of a rooster that Indra had disguised himself in, how could an ordinary woman like me tell her husband from an alien man in the dark hut? People condone the perpetrator’s act for he is a man and slander the victim for she is a woman……so much for your dharma, your system.”

Draupadi and other women, eyes welling up with tears, walk slowly and rally behind Ahalya. They touch her cascading tresses, her shoulders, her ears, hands and head.

“Now answer, at least, Ahalya,” Charvaka asks Bheeshma, stepping forward.

“I can’t answer for an event that happened very very long time ago,” says the sage and begins taking long strides, after throwing a lethal stare at Charvaka, emitting fiery rays.

A thunderstorm breaks out and the timeless and spaceless world dissolves into an eternal dream.

But still remain wet the women’s tears and unanswered their questions.