Choraya's Diary
Choraya's Diary, Entry 1, Tula 12:
Oh, how I've waited for tomorrow - the day of my marriage! The harvest is over, the weather is cooling, and I finally get to be married to the woman of my dreams. She is beautiful as the lilies, and as radiant as the stars. How lucky am I to be joined to her for the rest of my life. I cannot wait!! Maybe twenty years from now, I can present this diary to our children, as a memento and record of the beginning of our lives together. Kushi is actually with child, though her parents and I are the only ones who know. We even have a name! Roshanee, the light of our worlds. The location - the city of Kurukshetra, which she believes is blessed by the gods, so that blessing will transfer into our marriage. I certainly hope so, too.
Choraya's Diary, Entry 2, Tula 13:
Good morning! Today's the day, and I'm so nervous. Over the past 8 years, Kushi and I have come to know each other pretty well, I think. But as Daada always told us, "You never really know someone until you live together with them for twenty years!" That would always be followed up with some crazy laughter and a nudge in the ribs from his wife though. Haha....rest in peace, Daada. Thanks for all your wisdom over the years. Anyways, I have to go prepare and make sure everything is going alright for the wedding this afternoon. It's going to be amazing.
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Choraya's Diary, Entry 3, Tula 15:
Last entry was two days ago...So much has happened since then. I have to make this brief, as we're still on the move, but long story short, our wedding was NOT amazing. In fact, as Kushi was walking down the aisle, a messenger burst in shouting for everyone to evacuate, saying there was a war going on. A war! We were told that it was happening to the north of us, so we immediately began moving south. Kushi is still in her wedding dress, and her face is constantly downcast. I try to lighten her up by making jokes, to which she smiles slightly, but then just returns to her sad state. She was looking forward to this, probably more than I was. Blessed by the gods, huh? Yeah, right. At least we still have each other.
Choraya's Diary, Entry 4, Tula 16:
The messenger's information was wrong. The war was actually to the south. And we were caught right in the middle of the crossfire. Kushi...Kushi was...Roshanee..
Choraya's Diary, Entry 5, Tula 17:
Since we're not sure which way the battle will move, we decided to just trace back and make camp. We can hear the battle all throughout the day. Unparalleled battle rages. Why are they even fighting? What are they fighting for, except for their own lives? Is it the thrill of combat? Nothing about how tensions have arisen or how they might be resolved. Or who, if anyone, is to blame.
My Kushi is gone. Stolen from me by some faceless soldier in some pointless war. My Roshanee, our future, our light...snuffed out before she even began to shine. How could this happen? How cruel this world is.
Author's Note: The Mahabharata gives us an account of the big war between the Pandavas and the Kauravas - the two major factions in the epic - from the perspective of the fighters. But war doesn't just affect the combatants - it affects the civilians, who have nothing to do with the war, as well. I wanted to write an account of someone who may have been caught up in the war and the subsequent feeling of helplessness they might feel. Now personally, I've never experienced war firsthand, so I can only try to capture the emotion someone feels as they have everything stripped away from them, and I thought a diary format would be a good way to portray that.
The names here are integral to the story and carry a lot of weight. Choraya's name (Hindi: चुराया) means "stolen." Kushi's name (Hindi: ख़ुशी) means "happiness." And their unborn child, Roshanee (Hindi: रोशनी) means "light." Because of the war, Choraya's happiness and light were stolen from him in an unreasonable and unfair way. Everything he had set his hopes on, taken away in an instant, all because of some royalty fighting for the throne. Kind of ironic. In the fight for the throne, the kings ignore the actual kingdom.
Choraya's entries are dated using Hindu months (Rāśi) of its solar calendar. Interestingly, they have both a lunar and solar calendar, which have a discrepancy of about 11 days, which makes it so that they realign again approximately every 2.7 years. They account for the mismatch using months in between the calendars! Tula corresponds to between Oct-Nov of our Gregorian calendar (which is solar based).
Banner image: Ancient Nepalese manuscript, from the Endangered Archives Programme
Image: Lost, by Paul Bica. Taken from Flickr.