#draupadi

I'm too exhausted to describe it, so I'll just post the summary here:

Saanvi, Krishnaa's well-meaning niece, posts to r/advice, as one does, about her aunt and her boyfriend, believing her aunt is cheating. The internet tries to help. The internet (and Saanvi, and most of her family) do not know about the other four.

Subhadra has the most mentally unstable fans ever in the history of mankind.

I want to know what type of drugs they smoke to write such comments and then play victim card.

They will insult DRAUPADI by bringing their good for nothing always running away to dwaraka idol name in a DRAUPADI reel just because they can't see a simple reel of DRAUPADI and her husband arjun.

Damn this much jealous and insecure of DRAUPADI that they start barking such disgusting shit in DRAUPADI reels?

Are subhadrra fans the result of incest ?

Are their mothers mistresses of a married guy?

Is it because of it that they are always insecure and jealous of DRAUPADI?

Because their mother's are mistresses of a married man 😂😂😂😂😂.

It happened in the palace. A palace. In the court.

Who all are present inside a royal court? The king, noblemen, the ministers, the soldiers stationed for security, other chief officers of the kingdom, princes or royal figures of the subordinate kingdoms and the servants appointed for relaxation and refreshment.

The Hastinapur palace was famous, was huge. It was a very important and prestigious kingdom.

And a woman clad in one single garment, who was the queen was dragged by her hair like an animal in front of this court!

This queen, a fireborn princess, was a woman admired by all, desired by all and was dragged by her hair to the middle of the court as she screamed and wept.

They watched. Every man watched. The other royal figures, court officials, all the servants and Hastinapur's own officials watched.

Draupadi's family watched it.

They bore witness to how a queen could be insulted in a vile manner that would draw shudders down the spine of normal women who are away from the throne.

This incident actually marked how even a queen having the finest, wisest and powerful husbands in the end had no power in a court that watched it all in pitch silence and bowed heads.

In modern times, this would be equivalent to stripping a woman in the parliament.

Yet, Draupadi doesn't really burn down the court, doesn't ask for her primordial fire father to burn every man who stayed quiet through her plight.

The immense strength it takes to swallow this all and await for vengeance only to be called as the woman who started this wretched war.

The Hastinapur court had turned wretched right when Duryodhana even suggested Yudhishthira to put her at stake.

Perhaps the righteous men shunned their gaze away, but the others? They were salivating to watch the glorious fire-born queen be stripped naked, because in the end what is a woman but a servant to a man's whims.

She must be allowed grace and affection as long as she serves him with a beautiful face and body. Beyond that, she is nothing. She can be wagered, she can be spat on.

Did the women of Hastinapur wonder quietly to themselves that if men can attempt to strip a queen, if her own family men can desire to inflict harm upon her dignity, are they as the women of Hastinapur really safe then?

And Draupadi after all that the next moment perhaps goes numb. She doesn't gain respite after this horrific incident, instead goes to the forests.

She often has nightmares about this where Dushasana was successful in ravaging her modesty in front of the court.

Though Krishna saved her honour, yet does it change the fact that the attempt to do was thought of and brought to action.

Krishna gave her the cloth that never ended, yet this thought to bring women to their knees, to watch them beg and sob for their dignity ignited.

Krishna came to her in the end for where else would she go than submit herself to her Govind.

But the thought was done. The seed was planted.

A woman can be ravaged.

The God walked on earth so he saved a lone woman.

But when God doesn't walk on earth, who saves her? Even with God gracing the earth, if one can think to tear off a woman's cloth in public, such barbarian acts can be performed multiple times when God doesn't grace the earth anymore.

Who shall fight a gruesome war now when there are no kings and no dynasties left?

Who shall avenge a woman's screams now?

Quoting the relevant bits here:

Draupadi said,--'O bull of the Bharata race, if thou will grant me a boon, I ask the handsome Yudhishthira, obedient to every duty, be freed from slavery. Let not unthinking children call my child Prativindhya endued with great energy of mind as the son of a slave. Having been a prince, so superior to all men, and nurtured by kings it is not proper that he should be called the child of a slave.'

Draupadi said,--'I ask, O king, that Bhimasena and Dhananjaya and the twins also, with their cars and bows, freed from bondage, regain their liberty.’

(Chapter 70, Sabha Parva, KMG Mahabharata)

Like, why not free all five of them in one boon? Why single out Yudhishthira, and then only the younger four?

And also, her specific framing in the first boon: let my son not be known as the son of a slave. She never addresses Yudhishthira directly; whereas in the second she explicitly names her husbands and their weapons.

Krishnaa was loved, that she knew.

It was the deep laugh of her father, his affectionate pats on her head. It was her mother’s teary eyes that fell on her, the longing in the queen’s eyes to see her as an infant.

It was her siblings’ unspoken acts, somehow always ensuring she had everything she needed.

Love was what she felt most deeply.

It was her husbands’ lovelorn looks. The archer’s copper eyes forever enchanted, it was the way she was respected as the queen- and the goddess of their house.

A goddess and a mother, so full of love.

It was her children, the subjects of her queendom, it was every person-old and young-who never slept hungry in her watch.

Krishnaa was loved, that she knew.

But, then why were her cries for help unanswered?

“Protect dharma and it shall protect you,” that she did but wasn’t she loved? Wasn’t she loved? Why did no one stand up? Why did no one-?

And now she doesn’t believe that.

But you’re Krishnaa, the fire of the preserver incarnate. You’re fire’s daughter, aren’t you? So burn your culprits, burn the dice hall— why do you stay gentle even in a crisis like this? Agnijaa, PavakaPutri, so many epithets circling back to fire who sired you. Who are you? The dusky empress remains silent. Who are you? Shachi, the queen of heaven.

“Protect dharma and it shall protect you.”

“What is dharma?”

“Krishna.”

“Krishnaa?”

“Krishna.”

Love is what that grounds people. Love is what she has always felt so deeply.

So when she bled in that court, her heart heavy with rage and sorrow-

“Have mercy on them, Kalyani.”

She loved them. She loved her family, the people of her queendom. And she loved her husbands, deeply.

“Give them a chance to repent.”

That she did.

Maybe that is why she was loved by Shri and Hari both.

—————

This needs to be edited so heavily. So at first I wanted to do something else (you can notice by how the format suddenly changed) and it turned into something else entirely.

For someone who had both Shri and Hari as her close confidants, she had to be so full of love and mercy. Something rarely discussed as an aspect of her persona, I believe.