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Arjuna walked into the zenana. The softness and splendor of the women’s area of the palace shocked him into a near stumble. The zenana was always a restricted section of a palace, limited to women and eunuchs, so this was his first time to enter one. He breathed in the heady, foreign smell of pure femininity and efflorescent incense. Closing his eyes, Arjuna centered himself. He was someone else now, he must not forget that. Shunting aside the personality, ambitions, and history of the man he had always been, he felt the curse settle more firmly on his shoulders. When his lashes fluttered gently up from his cheeks, it was the eunuch Brihannala who looked out of his eyes.
“Please, Brihannala, I don’t wish to practice anymore.” The princess Uttara looked pleadingly at her dancing instructor, with tears beginning to pool in the corners of her eyes. The princess sat curled on a brightly colored cushion, arms wrapped around her updrawn knees, radiating a sense of hopelessness.
Unable to resist the young woman’s forlorn entreaty, Brihannala settled himself comfortably on another silk-covered cushion. “Uttara, I have been been your teacher for these last nine months. Never before have you shirked your duties. Under my tutelage, you have learned to sing like a koel and dance with grace and beauty. Why now do you wish to eschew your lessons? You seem so sad. What is wrong?”
“You wouldn’t understand.” Uttara wiped the stray tear that trickled down her cheek, and began to pluck disconsolately at a loose thread on her cushion. “You’re not a woman. You could never understand.”
Brihannala nodded in concession at her words. “Perhaps not, but I can listen if you will explain. You are like a daughter to me. If there is a way that I can ease your pain, I would like the chance to try.”
The princess began to haltingly explain her predicament, while keeping her eyes glued to the carpet. She felt that if she looked into Brihannala’s eyes, her tongue might shrivel in embarrassment. “My father summoned me today. He wanted to discuss my future. I have now reached marriageable age, and he has decided to seek a husband for me. I know it is silly, but I had hoped that when the time came for me to marry that I might have some say in it. I had convinced myself that Father would ask my opinion. He didn’t. He told me that there are two men he is considering. They are both very old and very ugly. I realized that I would have to let these men touch me. I stood in my father’s office and saw my life spread out before me. There was nothing but service, silence, and duty. Service to a man who would lay his hands upon my cringing flesh, whether I willed it or not. There was the silence of having to swallow my disgust and my fear while I endure it. There will be no hope, no joy, and no love in my life. I wish that there was something you could do to help, but there is nothing anyone can do. It is the curse of being a woman. It is my duty.”
Months later, after becoming Arjuna again, he thought back on this conversation. Before that moment, he had never really considered what women must feel about their lot in life. They were subservient, it was their place and the way things must be. He’d never taken into account the pain, fear, and helplessness that they must so often feel. After Uttara laid bare her anguish and fear to him, it was something that he’d never forget.
Arjuna bowed respectfully. “King Virata, while I am honored at your offer to take Uttara as my wife, I must decline. She is like a daughter to me. However, I would like to offer my son, Abhimanyu, as a husband for her. He is young, strong, kind, and handsome. I believe that he would make her happy.”
Author's Note: In the Mahabharata, the Pandava brothers have to spend the last year of their exile incognito. They cannot be recognized, and if they are it will add twelve years to their sentence. They choose to go undercover in Matsya, in the court of King Virata.
Arjuna chooses to pretend to be a eunuch named Brihannala and serve in the women's quarters as a dancing and singing instructor. He does this in order to wear bracelets that will cover the scars on his arms from his bow and to fulfill the curse of Urvashi that was made in the palace of Indra, Arjuna's father. Urvashi had been insulted by Arjuna's refusal to sleep with her, so she cursed him to be a eunuch who could only sing and dance with women. Indra requested that she confine the curse to a single year, with a year being the same amount of time that Arjuna had to stay incognito.
Narayan's version of the Mahabharata says little about Arjuna's experiences in the women's quarters of the palace. He became a dance teacher to the princess Uttara, who he viewed as a daughter, and made friends with many of the women. I wanted to look at what Arjuna might have experienced and learned while living so close to women. The lives of women and men, particularly warrior men, would have been very different in an ancient, patriarchal society. I wanted Arjuna to see the world from a different perspective by forcing him to really see that difference.
In my story, I describe the women's section of the palace as the zenana. It is a term that means "of the women" or "pertaining to women". This is not a term that was in use during the time period in which the Mahabharata takes place. It came into use during the Mughal Empire to describe the section of a house that is reserved for women. The Mughal Empire was a Muslim dynasty that ruled India after its founder defeated the Delhi Sultunate in 1526. Although it is not a historically accurate term for this time period, I like the word and I thought that it was a good way to give the image of a separated, exclusively female section of the palace.
While talking to Uttara, Brihannala tells the princess that she sings like a koel. The Asian koel is a songbird that is widely found on the Indian subcontinent. It is often referenced in Indian poetry due to the beauty of its song.
My story has several breaks in time. It starts out as he first begins his service with the women. I wanted to show that Arjuna was walking into a very different world from what he was used to. Later, he gets to hear what a woman might feel about marriage and duty. He had been serving as princess Uttara's instructor for a while, so he'd had time to develop protective feelings toward her and to know her as a person. I wanted this to change Arjuna in some way by providing a wider perspective. The second break takes us to the time after Arjuna's identity has come out, and the king is offering him his daughter, Uttara, as a wife.
Bibliography: Mahabharata by Narayan. Web Source.
Images:
- Ladies of the Zenana on a Roof Terrace by Ruknuddin, 1666.
- Brihannala
- Arjuna
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