The mighty Himalayas stood tall with snow coating all over their surface. They were arising from the ground with pride as if they wanted to reach the skies piercing through dense, fluffy clouds. With greenery at their base and the abundant pale blue above and below, in the sky and the series of lakes surrounding them, Himalayas looked as magnificent as a painting from Rome, where the painter had run out of all colours but blue, green and white.
One might do nothing but wonder how truly good and powerful was the creator who put those mountains in their place. Maybe that was the reason the Himalayas were termed as the staircase to heaven.
The sun was rising with a casual elegance while spreading its glitter in every possible direction. It let her rays cascade onto the thick snow, which enhanced the gleaming reflections with delight.
With the wind rustling through the trees and the water lapping against the stones, it might have looked soothing from afar but it was not a pleasant cold to live in; instead, it was the type that would make warm clothes want to have shelters of their own to safeguard themselves. The air seemed to bite the skin and every single breath, a mighty effort for regular humans. The lighting and temperature deemed unbearable for normal living beings.
In such an utterly alien landscape embodying boredom with deceptive dullness, silently walked five tall men with their eyes roaming freely over the hills. Their faces were mostly obscured by scraggly black beards and their eyes, devoid of any warmth.
The peak of the mountains bent slightly to check these men out, with the lakes also scrutinising those strangers. The wind, with its toothy bite, started flowing with all the might to punish those creatures who were trying to disturb the peace of that beautiful place. Little did it know that the leader of those men was once regarded as an epitome of peace and righteousness.
Those five men had once been warriors who with their might, had instilled fear in their enemies and had survived the most gruesome battle in their past.
And behind them trotted a beautiful lady. Was she walking or just dragging her feet with might? She looked like a woman who once brimmed with charm, strength, patience, tolerance, forgiveness, love, mercy, compassion, grace but then gave it up all, after getting physically exhausted and mentally drained.
With that lady coming in sight, nature witnessed a drastic change but on a pleasant note. Nature that stuffed itself with boundless wisdom and passionately embraces all the creatures but silently witnesses everything happening around it, bowed to the lady with admiration as if it had met her counterpart for the first time ever. It was difficult, even for the towering Himalayas to not stand in awe and enchantment, witnessing her presence.
All the men walking ahead of her had a smile on their face witnessing the sudden change in weather. This was no surprise to them. They were used to such experiences owing to their past.
She was their wife. That lady had five husbands who also happened to be brothers.
Yudhishtira, Bheema, Arjuna, Nakula, and Sahadeva. All five brothers were married to the same woman, Draupadi. They had lived together through happiness and sorrows, through thick and thin, through riches and rags, through pleasures and painful times. And now, all of them were on their quest of Swargaloka.
Five husbands.
Five warriors, intellectuals, heroes.
Every journey has to end somewhere and her marital journey with them was about to end there that day.
But she was not in a condition to fret about or embrace the unexpected developments happening around her. She was only alive physically.
All her life, she had seen such unanticipated events and conflicts at whichever place she had stepped in.
To a few men, she was the testament of divine purity and devotion while most of the others stared at her with sexual desire. A few were imbued with reverence for her while another few looked at her with disgust.
She had experienced all the physical pleasures and agony a living being could have had. What else was left for her to experience? Except for death!
The moment she acknowledged that she could no way reach the staircase to Swargaloka, she looked at the peak of the mountains with a blissful smile on her face. She felt Lord Shiva showering her with his blessings. The life which had originated with the boon of Lord Shiva ultimately would come to an end at his doorstep in a matter of a few moments.
With her breath coming out in gasps and her bare feet cold from the freezing snow beneath, she dropped to her knees and then fell down to the ground with a thud. All five brothers could sense that she had slipped but none bothered to look back, except Bheema.
She knew that all of them loved her but them not halting to check on her was no surprise to her. She had always known Yudhishtira to be the epitome of dharma and all his brothers would willfully follow him no matter what.
Bheema came running towards her and started crying, “Draupadi Draupadi, are you fine?”
She could not utter a word.
He then quickly ran to Yudhishtira, crossed him and steadied himself with his hands on his knees for a moment, panting heavily. Such was the weather that even the hulk-like Bheema could not breathe properly after running a few yards.
He said, "Dear big brother, she is dying and you do not even bother to look back. This is unfair in all senses. Please do something," choking back his tears. Though Bheema was physically the toughest and most powerful, he had a naive, childlike heart.
“Bheema, our existence here is only for a brief period. Our attachments and affection towards our dear ones are temporary. Our hostility and hatred towards our enemies are temporary. Only dharma stays forever. There is no end to dharma. The ultimate goal of life is death. Everything has to come to an end one day and it is her turn today. It might be myself tomorrow. Eventually, every one of us will die and land at Swargaloka or Narakaloka as per our Karma. Therefore, grieving for what is inevitable is a futile exercise."
“Dear brother, you are the embodiment of justice and righteousness. I agree with every bit of your preachings but how can we leave her all alone in this condition? After all, she is our wife, the one who we all married, witnessed by the earth, water, fire, air, and space. Why does she have to die first amongst all of us? What sin did she do to get in this miserable situation?”
“She is dying first because she deserves it,” Yudhishtira replied firmly.
“Deserves? How can you say that?” Bheema questioned his statement in a high-pitched voice.
“Because she loved Arjuna more than any of us, though all five of us are her husbands, which is a sin,” Yudhishtira answered in a blunt manner, which made Bheema numb with shock for a moment. Arjuna also heard him from behind but he chose not to respond.
She could vaguely hear their conversation but was not in a position to respond. In fact, she did not even feel the need to respond.
Misconceptions, misinterpretations, insults, humiliations, grief, miseries - she had been through all these to a vast extent all her life.
’Husband Yudhishtira, you are scholarly enough to extensively understand each mantra chanted by the priests during our wedding and their significance in merging a husband and his wife as one entity. If only you could have used a bit of that awareness in reading a woman’s heart, I would not have to bear such senseless accusations today,’ she thought to herself. A part of her heart died that moment.
She felt that this misconception created by Yudhishtira was the driving force behind none of her husbands bothering to check on her.
Bheema knew that there was no way he could change Yudhishtira’s mind and started moving helplessly towards her while his brothers continued walking. He could see her watery eyes as a cold breeze whipped the hair across her face.
She felt an invisible force was blocking all her senses slowly, sucking up all the energy she had in her body and crushing her. All she could see was a magical white layer in front of her eyes getting thicker, gradually blocking her vision. She was experiencing absolutely nothing, feeling as light as a feather.
“Is this what death feels like?” she thought to herself. A flashback of all her life events started playing in her mind. With the snow cracking under her body in sync with her warm heart breaking and all her inner voices leading her to the proximity of Lord Krishna, she closed her eyes.