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She who sows vengeance must reap its bloody fruit.
To see a loved one in pain is more wrenching than to bear that pain yourself. The war had taught me this.
This is the nature of sorrow: often it fades with time, but once in a while it remains lodged below the surface of things, a stubborn thorn beneath a fingernail, making itself felt every time you brush against it. (How well I knew this, for random events would startle me into the memory of a pair of ancient eyes.)
There was an unexpected freedom in finding out that one wasn’t as important as one had always assumed!
The more people dissuaded me, the more determined I became. Perhaps that has always been my problem, to rebel against the boundaries society has prescribed for women. But what was the alternative? To sit among bent grandmothers, gossiping and complaining, chewing on mashed betel leaves with toothless gums as I waited for death? Intolerable! I would rather perish on the mountain. It would be sudden and clean, an end worthy of bard-song, my last victory over the other wives: She was the only consort that dared accompany the Pandavas on this final, fearsome adventure. When she fell, she did not
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It’s only now I see that he’d always been there, sometimes in the forefront, sometimes blended into the shadows of my life. When I thought myself abandoned, he was busy supporting me—but so subtly that I often didn’t notice. He loved me even when I behaved in a most unlovable manner. And his love was totally different from every other love in my life. Unlike them, it didn’t expect me to behave in a certain way. It didn’t change into displeasure or anger or even hatred if I didn’t comply. It healed me. If what I felt for Karna was a singeing fire, Krishna’s love was a balm, moonlight over a
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