Karna's Wife by Kavita Kane Page B

which had been told to her by her mother, was a curious one. It seemed that the couple was so poor that they did not own even a cow, in spite of being brahmins, and little Ashwatthama had never tasted milk as had the other boys in the brahmin neighbourhood. One day, a very fretful Kripi, tired of fooling her little son with rice powder and water, which she gave him instead of milk, taunted her husband Dronacharya about the great gap in wealth between the two friends—while one was a king, the other remained a poor brahmin who could not afford milk for his only son. Angered and shamed by her words, Dronacharya left home, promising he would only return with wealth and fame. Recalling King Drupad’s promise to share his kingdom with him, Dronacharya approached his friend for help. But that promise turned out to be empty and the arrogant King of Panchal not only refused to help him out, but did not acknowledge the guru as his friend either. ‘Friends are among equals,’ he said scornfully, and offered to give him alms befitting a poor brahmin. Humiliated, Dronacharya took the insults silently—but he vowed revenge.
    As the guru of the Kuru princes in martial arts, Dronacharya told them that they had to fulfil one important command. He asked them to bring King Drupad to him in chains as guru dakshina, the gift customarily given to a teacher by disciples. At once, without further ado, all the Kuru princes set out to capture King Drupad—but it was Arjuna and the Pandava princes who defeated the swelling Panchala army. The victorious Arjuna captured King Drupad and brought him to his revered guru. In his moment of triumph, Dronacharya told the defeated king that by taking half his kingdom as he was entitled to, he could become his equal, but being a brahmin, he was neither interested in kingdoms nor in becoming a king. Saying this, he contemptuously returned the kingdom to King Drupad and set him free. The humiliated King of Panchal swore revenge on his friend and performed a special yagna (sacrifice) from which sprang a son, the sword-wielding Dhrishtadyumna, born to kill Dronacharya, and a daughter, the dark, sultry Draupadi, who would marry Arjuna, Dronacharya’s favourite disciple. The stage was set for the king to pit the shishya against the guru.
    It was ironical that Dronacharya had earned himself another enemy through Arjuna, besides the wrathful King Drupad. And that was Karna. Dronacharya, because of his extreme affection and pride for his favourite disciple, Arjuna, had rejected two potential rivals, both worthy opponents, of Arjuna. The first one was Eklavya, a tribal prince and a master archer who was asked to give his right thumb as guru dakshina. When he heard the guru’s command, the devoted Eklavya cut it off and offered it to him, knowing that he could never string a bow ever again.
    The other contender who challenged Arjuna’s prowess in archery was Karna. Realising that the young sutaputra might better his favourite student some day, Dronacharya rejected Karna outright on the pretext that Karna was not born a royal warrior. Karna, smarting under the snub, then swore that, one deciding day, he would challenge Arjuna and defeat him. In this way, Dronacharya had set two worthy archers against each other and inadvertently began a terrible rivalry between Karna and Arjuna, one that was to reverberate throughout their lives, Uruvi thought bitterly.
    The relentless Karna meanwhile persisted and sought knowledge of weapons and martial arts as the student of Parshurama, the guru of Bhishma Pitamaha. But even as he rose to become the star pupil of the formidable and hard-to-please Guru Parshurama, Karna did not allow himself to forget the sting of Guru Dronacharya’s insult. ‘The seeds of discontent continued to grow as a life-long resentment against the Kurus’ guru,’ sighed Karna’s mother wretchedly.
    The last to fall prey to Dronacharya’s love and extreme partiality for Arjuna was his own son,