Dana was a beautiful girl, although she had not always been this way. She grew up in a small town in Montana and never saw herself as pretty. She worked as a waitress five nights a week and took college classes during the day. One day a man she had never seen before entered the diner, his name was Andy. She took his order and giggled flirtatiously. She had never gotten the butterflies over a stranger before. That summer they had a whirlwind romance.
"Dana, I don't know how to say this but now that the summer is ending I won't be in Montana much longer", said Andy. Dana looked at him longingly as tears began to form in the corners of her eyes. He did not want to disappoint her, and without thinking shouted " I want you to come with me!"
Fast forward to today Dana is a married woman. She isn't married to Andy as one would think, but his older brother Yani. She had packed up to move to Vegas with Andy the man she loved. However as they settled in Yani took a liking and Andy began to push away. Their mother wanted her oldest son to be a married man and told Andy he needed to break up with her. Dana did not want to move back to Montana to her simple life and gave into Yani's advances. They were married two months later.
Yani is a businessman. Powerful and impulsive when it came to his business and personal affairs. Dana and Yani went out in celebration one night after a business deal. Yani was proud of his accomplishment no matter who it brought down. However that same night his business partner was out with vengeance on his mind.
"Hey Yani! didn't expect to see you out tonight!", said his partner. "No hard feelings right, " replied Yani. "of course not, how about a game of dice?" he said.
His business partner knew that Yani couldn't resist a a gamble. The first round he let Yani win, and he was hooked. As the bets got bigger Yani couldn't handle losing. His business partner wanted him to lose all that Yani had made him lose. "All or nothing, I win you sign over your last shares of the buiness, you win you can have Dana," said Yani. "Deal," said the business partner all the while knowing the outcome. Dana was shocked.
They rolled. Yani lost.
Dana immediately started crying, she did not want to be passed off again to another man. Yani walked away in defeat and his business partner grabbed Dana by the wrist and took her to his hotel room. She cried begging him to let her go and he refused. " You can never go back to Yani but I won't make you stay here," he said. The next day he booked her a flight back to Montana. Her luxurious life was over and she remained in Montana for the next 12 years.
Authors Note: This is the story of the gambling match. In the original story Daupadi picked her suitor in a competition. When her future husband took his "prize" home his mother order him to let his oldest brother marry her. I told some of the background on the story of Draupadi in my story as being a waitress. I thought that giving her a job of a waitress in a small town would make her more likely to want to run off with a man she loved. In the story I also wanted to tell the beginning as a romance instead of a competition.This gave Draupadi more of a reason to stay with the older brother even though she did not love him. Although Montana is better than exile like in the real story it was back to the life she did not want to live. I left the story with the cliffhanger of the reader wondering what happened to her once she returned to Montana.
Title: The Indian Story Book: The Five Tall Sons of Pandu
Author: Richard Wilson
Illustrator: Frank Pape
Year: 1914
Picture source: unsplash.com