Bheel Mahabharata - Part 5
One day Bheem asked Kutma’s permission and went to graze animals. He let the animals graze by the Ratnakar Sea and started strolling. Bheem found Karama Dhobi washing the Kauravas’ clothes at the beach and he settled down beside him, eating chickpeas. Karama’s young son, seeing that, asked him for some. Bheem refused to share, and told Karama to get some from the market. So, Karama told Bheem to keep an eye on the boy and the clothes and left. The moment Karama was out of sight Bheem threw the kid against a boulder and then threw him into the sea where a crocodile ate him. Then Bheem tore up all the clothes of the Kauravas and tied it around his legs, and limped on, telling the other people he met on the beach that he’s sick.
A little farther, he saw the 88 Kaurava brothers sitting on a Banyan tree, their tiffin bags hanging off the branches. He asked who the tiffin bags belonged to and they said that Nakul comes to play dice with them every day, and dutifully loses his tiffin to them, and then they hang it up on the tree as trophies. Bheem remembered how Nakul was feverish that morning, and decided to teach them a lesson. He gathered several large thorns underneath the tree, and then shook the tree until all the brothers had fallen unto them.
Then Bheem walked towards Dhavalagarh. Enroute, he found an oil-merchant making til-kachariya [dessert made of sesame seeds, jaggery and nuts] for the Kauravas. Bheem asked him for it and when refused, threw the merchant across twelve villages and then ate everything. Then in Dhavalagarh he met Gatarama, who was taking tiffin for the Kauravas. Then he went back to the tree with Gatarama and started fake-crying, telling her that the eastern wind must’ve blown them off. Gatarama somehow pulled them out, and then stuffed them all in her bullock-cart and went home.
The next day, Kabir [Dushhasan] went t their Kuldevi Kumbhimata’s temple, and promised to sacrifice the five Pandavas to her. Then, he hid under a black blanket and went to Aasnapur, where he found only four of them, since Bheem had gone with the animals. So, he wrapped up Kutma and the four brothers in his blanket and left. Bheem came back, found them missing and followed Kabir’s footsteps.
Arama [Hidimba] was swinging on a swing. She saw Bheem following the footsteps and asked him to pay a tax for the road to him. Bheem said he doesn’t have any money, and so Arama told him to push her swing. Bheem pushed it so hard, Arama almost reached Surya’s chariot in the sky. Then Bheem and Arama locked eyes, and she fell pregnant and fainted. Bheem stopped the swing and left, and immediately after Arama gave birth to Gharano Ghatukaro [Ghatotkach].
The baby asked Arama who his father was, and Arama showed him Bheem, walking away. Gharano Ghatukaro ran after Bheem and caught his fingers. Bheem asked him who he would support if there’s a battle between him and the Kauravas, and he said he’d support whoever was losing. Bheem was scared of that, and he yanked the boy by his braid and locked him in the seventh Patal.
Bheem then saw the brothers and Kutma tied up in front of the deity idol and Kabir chanting mantras with his eyes closed. Bheem hid behind the idol and commanded, in a woman’s voice, to feed him. So, Kabir brought him halwa, churma, laddoos and water. After this, Bheem jumped out from behind the idol and started fighting Kabir.
In the middle of the fight, Bheem got hungry again, so Kutma asked Bheem to gather a lot of dust and she put her breastmilk on them to make more laddoos. Eating that, Bheem was reinvigorated and tore Kabir into two pieces. However, whenever he did so, the half Kabirs joined back and came back to life. Then Kutma told him to throw the pieces in opposite directions, so Bheem did that and Kabir now stayed dead.
Once Narad asked Krishna how much of the world he ruled. Krishna tried to avoid the question, but eventually told him that he ruled over 3/4th of the world [called Vaikuntha]. Narad then wanted to visit the 1/4th part, named Atara [Andhariya] Khand, that was ruled by the Danavas. So, they went, and before they could run away, the Danavas, led by Mahish Danav, arrested both of them, tied their hands and legs, tied them to the tails of their horses, whipped them till they were half-dead and then dragged them through the forest. Then the Danavas put them inside two foul-smelling leather bags, sew those up and threw them in a garbage dump.
At night, one Brahmin was going to the jungle with a pot, and Krishna started loudly yelling that the Danavas were stupid to do this to them, because he was about to marry all the unmarried girls in Vaikuntha to the Danavas. Hearing that, Mahish Danav immediately ordered that they be freed, and then Krishna invited every single Danava to Vaikuntha on the next full-moon day and escaped with Narad.
On that day, Krishna gathered all the foxes from all over Vaikuntha and dressed them up as girls. Then the real girls all cussed out the Danavas [as part of the marriage rituals], and then everyone locked up all the Danavas in the Dhuliya Kothi and burnt all of them alive.
