Having to Share: Draupadi and the Love of Her Five Husbands!
Hello children, come on in.
As the children entered the home, they all gathered around the huge
fire that their grandma had built.
"Grandma, tell us how you met Grandpa," asked the kids.
Draupadi sat down in her rocking chair and proceeded to tell her
grandchildren the story of her five husbands and how it happened that
she had loved all five of them.
"Well children, you actually have five grandfathers."
"Five!?" said the children, stunned.
Yes children. I will tell you the story.
"You see, before this life, I was a young lady named Nalayani."
"Grandma, what do you mean before this life?" asked one of the children.
"Well, you see, it is called reincarnation, which means, being born
into a different body."
"We see!"
"OK, so when I was the young lady Nalayani,
I had a husband who was a great wise man. He was not as loving as I
would have
liked him to be, so I prayed to Lord Siva for my husband to love me
like five
husbands would. At the moment, it seemed like a nice idea, but that did
not last too long. My husband got tired of showing me so much love and
left me all alone."
"Why would you want him to love you like five husbands, Grandma?"
"Well,
children, I thought that I wanted all that love and it was very selfish
for me to ask for it, but little did I know, the consequences of Karma
I would have
to face for my prayer. After my husband left me, I wondered why I would
ask
him to put forth so much. I missed him dearly."
"So what happened after he left?"
"I was very depressed and soon I died."
"You died?"
"Yes, but only to be born again as Draupadi, who I am today. I was
reborn as a princess and when it was time for me to marry, my father
held a contest, a swayamvara, to see who would be my husband. Many men
came to the contest and many of them very
handsome. I was very excited at the time, yet I did not know my fate."
"So what happened there, Grandma? Is that where you met our five
grandfathers?"
"Yes,
this is where I met them. Although I did not realize I would be married
to five of them, I thought it would only be one man. There was this
wonderful man named Arjuna, he was supposedly a brahmin, a holy man,
but he was
really a prince. He was so strong. He was able to string the bow and
hit the target. Whoever was to win my heart had to do this. I was so
happy that he had won, because all of the rest of the men did not
please me. You see, kids, this is when I had to face the consequences
of
my Karma from the previous life."
"What happened, Grandmother? You said you were so happy. What could be
wrong with that?"
"I
was happy, until I found out that Arjuna
had to share me with all of his brothers. You see, kids, Arjuna's
mother had told him and his brothers that they must share and because
his mother had told them so, they had to obey her. This
is how I came to be the wife of five men. It did not make me feel very
good to find this out. This was very confusing to me. I had never been
in such a situation where I had to share myself. I felt like many
people would look down on me, especially my father. But you
see, children, that is what you call the consequences of your actions
coming back. I did not realize that I had made such a mistake in my
earlier life asking for my husband to love me as five men. I did not
realize that I would
face something like this in my present life."
"Grandma, how do you know all this about your previous life?"
"Well, I had a conversation with a wise old man named Vyasa one day and
he let me know why I
was having to be a wife to five husbands."
"I wish we could have met our grandfathers."
"Me too, children, me too."
"Just remember, every action has consequences that you must face, in
this lifetime, or the next. This, my children
is called Karma."
Picture of Draupadi and Pandavas going home after the
Swayamvara. Web Source: The woman.
Author's
Note: I wanted to tell this story from the point of view of the actual
characters. I thought that Grandma telling her grandchildren the story
would
make it an interesting setting. With Grandma telling the story this
way, the
reader tends to get a little different feel about Karma and how it
affects someone in a different lifetime. They learn from the person
involved how they reacted and how they feel now. In the original story,
Vyasa tells the story of Nayalani to the brothers and explaining
to them why Draupadi
must be shared between them. It never really shows how
Nalayani/Draupadi felt in the
previous or present life. The original never really points out
if Draupadi found out about her fate. I wanted to incorporate her
feelings throughout the story for both lives and also have Vyasa
telling her why she was facing this. I also wanted the setting to be a
very personal one that the readers can relate to, as if their parents
or grandparents were telling them the story of how they
met someone. I also added questions from the grandchildren, because
when someone is telling a story, children tend to ask a lot of
questions, thus
bringing the story to life.
Bibliography:
Narayan, R.K. (1978). The Mahabharata: A Shortened Modern Prose Version
of the Indian Epic.
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