Draupadi, tell the truth

                                                              

Draupadi, stop those lies!

For five thousand years you have allowed humanity to believe in the notion that you were victimized by Yudhisthir and the Kauravas; your shame around your body exposed in broad daylight before an audience of men, you called your step brothers and your husbands. And that your loyalty to the Pandava brothers, was sacrosanct. That when Yudhisthir, in a fit of passion, staked himself, his brothers, his kingdom and finally you as well, you made it out to seem like you were the harmed one, driven to the other camp where the Kauravas stood waiting to devour you.

But, he, Yudhisthir, was the wronged one too. Wronged by you! For, you had cast a spell on him, so deep, he was obsessed with you. Alas, his infatuation found no respite, for as long as you were with Arjuna, he could never have you. His gripping desire for you boiled in his belly, waiting to spill out.

Yet…..

Draupadi, tell the world, that much before this day had dawned you enjoyed this play happening around you, when both Yudhisthir, the eldest of the Pandavas and his cousins, the Kauravas, were cast into the dungeon of smoldering heat obsessing with you.

I ask you, were you not responsible for this? This bath that the world knows you had come out from at the moment when you were dragged by your hair and placed on the dais, was it not what you had been bathing in, so many years in your mind? This longing, this wetness of a perennial flow of yearning, this burning flesh, this quiet and secret craving for other men – was it not what you had been pining for, that resulted in Yudhisthir being besotted with you? That you had played with his infatuation to the hilt, by placing your impression on his mind in such a way that he became powerless over his passion for you? And behind all this melodrama that took place that day, you hid the truth about your multi-fanged tongue with which you licked the carnal desire in many men, even the Kauravas?

You hid the fact that while you remained committed to one you would always dance to the tune of your desire for the other. The real drama goes on in your mind, flirting with the subconscious and the conscious mind. What they dare to reveal to the world and what they conceal within, unknown to everyone. Even to you sometimes.

In the contorted expression on your face that day, or the way your fingers and toes clenched inward, as you expressed pain, being dragged by your hair; in the manner you thrust your breast, now hiding, now exposing it before the Kauravas, the arch of your swollen hips, twisting this way and that, as if to resist, to hold back, yet, not quite, I have seen the hungry tide of longing mixed with passion, seething forth, like a woman about to meet the mounting pulsating throb inside her body and her mind.

Therefore, Draupadi, tell the world, that for you the distinction between pain and pleasure are blurred. Indeed, the two are too close and when one gives rise to the other, it is out of your control.

Nay, not true! It is indeed all within your control to determine how you want to participate in this wild dance, your wet with passion hair waving like tongues of fire, lashing out in the air. And if I have deciphered correctly, I can tell you Draupadi, I have heard the guttural laughter emanating from your throat, of satisfaction, so deep, you could only wait for just a few more moments before you lost yourself in the experience once again! And again…..and again!

Men are fools, you say. Look at Krishna! Trying to hide your shame externally, when in your mind you are drinking from the well of eternal ecstasy!

Draupadi, tell the world, that like a moth burns itself in the fire, you too must do it again and again, burning yourself out in the fire of your own feelings and therefore, you will always flirt with the forbidden. Tell the world that while you lived with Arjuna, you toyed with the desire for the other brothers as well. Tell the world that this is what you had all along fantasized, being forcefully thrown into the inferno of carnal desires; that the fight to possess you was what you yourself wanted most. And in the minds of the Kauravas, you had already been stripped off, of all your resistance, you lay in their hands to do what they so wished to do with you. Tell the world, this is what you wanted – to be possessed so completely by the other.

The boredom of complacency is not for you; the ‘given’ too unexciting. Hence, you will always play with danger, that which is taboo. For the taste of forbidden fruit is just too sweet to forego.

You are not the victim. You have perfected the art over generations of being with one, but spreading yourself widely across to many. At least in your mind, your need for many has sustained over generation, playing hide and seek between the layers of consciousness, between the hidden and the exposed, the acceptable and the forbidden, the blatantly obvious and the masked…..

While the whole world stops to cry…poor Draupadi! You are having the last laugh!

Draupadi, tell the truth!

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Who is Draupadi?

Every woman!

In the epic Mahabharata, however, she is the learned daughter of King Drupada of Panchala, and wife of Arjuna, one of the Pandava brothers. But because Kunti, mother of the Pandava brothers wished it, she became the wife of all the Pandavas brothers as well. Yudhisthir, who is besotted with her, is the eldest of the Pandava brothers.

The social practice, polyandry, still prevalent in parts of India, permits one women to marry many men, especially if they are brothers in the same family.

The desire monologue, in the above writing is the author’s own depiction. So is her claim that the potential to desire more than one lover is every woman’s Draupadic inheritance.

Picture credit: Rupa Ganguli as Draupadi: http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q114/deep86/rupa_padma03.jpg