Kunti's Entry

Dear Diary,

I am a Queen or I used to be. If you could even call me that, I am or was at this point in my life the first wife married to King Pandu more like King Pale One. I mean can you truly be a Queen if you feel like you are missing a King or the King doesn’t make time for his Queen? Can you be a Queen with no kingdom? Here I am cast into exile and wandering throughout the wilderness. I don’t think I have ever been a great Queen.

I am not the favorite wife of the King but the second rate version to Madri. Why have two wives if you only have time and affection for one? She was everything I hoped to be with King Pandu but I feel more like a wet nurse than a wife. King Pandu while he was living was always Madri this and Madri that. He never had time for me. I hope my boys never treat their wives like Pandu treats me.

I can’t believe those two left me with all the children. It would be different if I was even given the opportunity to make a choice but no, she goes and feeds herself to the wolves or should I say throws herself into the fire.I told you I felt like a wet nurse but no one believed me. Like it is not my fault he shot the sages in deer form and then got himself exiled. All those years in solitude and he never thought when he saw Madri again why have I been cast out all of those years. Maybe just maybe I was married to an idiot. King Pandu just ran to Madri like an idiot but you know what they say: you can’t fix stupid. That had to be the stupidest move. Then here comes the melodramatic Madri talking about her heart and how she could not bear to live in a world without him. Like, Madri, do you not remember the children? What mother just casts away her children? Well, I’ll tell you: selfish kind of mother. Everyone else viewed it as a noble sacrifice that Madri couldn’t live without King Pandu and decided to lay herself to rest. When I was the one to offer myself as a sacrifice to go with him first. Madri insisted, “I am his true love. He loves me the most. He would be disappointed to see you and not me.” Yes, because true love always has another's child, but you didn’t hear that from me.

I let her go be with King Pandu and keep watch over the boys. Don’t get me wrong: I wish them the best in the afterlife but I also hope Yama loses their souls just for a little while. I think my boys should have only one wife each because if they are anything like their “father” two women is too much for them to handle. Wouldn’t it be absolutely comical if all five of them had to share a wife? Ha ha, like what would be the odds of that happening? Could you see it, my boys all sharing just one wife?! Anywho, I doubt the love god would ever go that far. Tata, I think the boys are up to no good.

Author’s note: I noticed in the epic how they always favored Madri and how even to the end Madri was the favorite and made it known by being the sacrifice. I think that how would I feel if I was Kunti and had to constantly hear that I was the least favorite wife and what better way to express your innermost feelings than a diary entry? I like to look at the small things that are often overlooked in epics and give them a role or perspective that may not have been seen before. I was reading it and even I was a little hurt by how Kunti was treated and then I read where she got left with all the children and I gasp like that is not fair. So I wanted to give Kunti a voice and let her have human emotions not just the I must do this duty because I am a Queen and a mother and I have to be strong. I imagined how I would feel if I was always called the least favorite wife and I wanted her to be angry and get the emotions off her chest and that’s when the words started to flow.