Panchaali's Mahabharat

             

Born from the fire,

Dark and hasty girl and the unexpected one. 

Became an unwanted daughter but a beloved sister, 

I had no mother and was deprived of my father's love, 

I was born to change the course of history, 

But became the cause of the Great War – 

Mahabharata.

They call me the cause of the war, 

But is that what I wanted?

Is that what I aimed for?

Did I ever want thousands of women to become widows? 

Did I ever want my sons to die?

Did I ever wish for my beloved brother's death? 

No, I never intended to destroy the clan, 

I never wished to curse my family. 

They wreak the root of the war years ago,

They performed yajna for a son. 

They asked me not to marry the man I loved the most, 

They compelled me to tie a knot with the five men to save their mother's honour?

They got me Indra Prastha, the magical palace, 

They took me to Hastinapur, the kingdom of evils, 

It was they who lost me in the game of dice, 

They treated their queen as a maid, 

It was they who tried to strip me naked in front of great warriors, 

It was they who treated me miserably in the sabha, in the middle of dice, 

No one came to save me, to punish those evils, 

Everyone stared at me as if I were a toy, a thing to play with. 

Is that because I was a woman and they were men?