The Kaunteyas

by Madhavi S. Mahadevan

Yes, women’s tales, too, have been told by men, but with an important difference: they are cautionary. They warn men that women are clever, conniving, deceitful and, frequently, the cause of dissension. They tell women how they should be and, more importantly, not be.

Men’s stories are the bones of a bygone age, sanctified as relics, preserved in stone. Women’s stories are written in water. Passed in silence from mother to daughter. About things perishable: flesh, blood, feelings, tears. Suffering. Endurance is a sign of womanliness.

Love between a man and a woman seems a mystery, intimate yet subtle, its nebulous shape a rush in the blood, an imprint on the soul; its essence to be divined in songs, stories, secret yearnings and dreams, but never to be evaluated, examined or weighed in words. It is unknowable, until the moment one is struck by it. And then it is as if the world is lit up from within.

He is a man. He will break my heart one day. Only a man can do that.

You are a puppet dancing to many strings. Who pulls them—fate, family, society—it does not matter. You are doomed to dance till it kills you!’

Love depletes you. It restores you. Love is regeneration. It gives rise to a new receptivity. Love transforms. It is the lone spark that drives away the darkness in the depths of our hearts. It is all we need, but it can also reduce us to nothing. Love is the dancing flame that burns the lamp’s soft wick to blackness. Love can, on occasions, bring pleasure, but it always, always brings pain.

Happiness is a composite emotion, a distillation of bliss, delight, joy, ecstasy and ease. Misery, on the other hand, is unsubtle. Opaque as the unseeing eye, hard of hearing, thick-headed with its own anguish. Like an abyss, it offers nothing but darkness. Yet the acknowledgement of a condition more miserable than one’s own can be an eye-opener.

Fate and duty. Was one’s entire life meant only to be crushed between these two?

Be careful what you wish for—you just might get it.

Krishna says that you must train your mind to let go of whatever it is that you fear to lose,

‘That you are never loved for what you are, but only for what you can be.

‘Death is not the only way to deathlessness. Have the courage to live.

Death is important to a man, but survival is more important to a woman.