Arundhati Sahoo
Wars are kinder to men, for they are given a chance, in the battlefield,to showcase their prowess at weapons and strategy-making - either toemerge victorious or to die valorously. The very act of fighting a battlewashes them off their earthly sins, securing their position in the heavens.But what about the women? Burning silently inside, anxious andafraid, guilty and grieved, passive and powerless, they remain silentspectators of events so momentous that turn their lives upside down.These women lose battles without fighting them. And then they keepburning inside, long after the pyres of the vanquished and the flambeauxof the victorious have fizzled out.....What if Gandhari didn’t blindfold herself just out of devotion for her futurehusband but at her powerlessness to prevent herself from a fate similar toAmba’s? Did Kunti ever overcome her guilt over Karn? Did Draupadi learnto sympathize with the maidservants and the prostitutes she was comparedto in the open court or did she only think about herself? Did Subhadralearn to live with her guilt of having slept off mid-way during Arjun’sexplanation of the Chakravyuh? Did the cold-shouldered Hidimba forgivethe Pandavas? What must have been going on in the mind of Duhshala, theonly princess of Hastinapur, when she had to support her infant grandsonwhile reigning over the empire of Sindhu alone? What about Bhanumati,that unfortunate widow of Duryodhan? Could Uttara the child-widow everlearn to see Abhimayu’s reflection in Parikshit?A story of the unexplored thoughts of these powerful women, who lostinner battles bigger than Mahabharat and struggled in silence to endurewith more strength each time life knocked them down!
