My Days in Mahabharat

Bhanumati's treasure

Hastinapur

Sojourn in Mahabharat and simply in a sleep is not correlative. Colossal epic and it's grandeur is unparalleled with all pulchritudinous factors and ways. Therefore, there is not a chance for noceur as me to soak myself in a deep slumber.

Marking the ochre stained page ४०० of the book titled Nakshatra, borrowed from Sahdev which I had so eagerly packed in my two weeks stay luggage of Hastinapur, that one dried and pressed bloom of quartz bloom germanium is used as a bookmark.

The flower recently bloomed in those flowering garden of Indraprastha and I habitually had collected it for my pressed flower art hobby, in a spruce wooden box gifted to me by Queen Gandhari.

"Could not think of an ideal present for an artistic girl such as you but this. It already has some dried pansies and I am sure you will fill it with more" she had said to me before I departed with my family to once snake infested land, Khandavprastha.

Therefore, saving the reading leisure for my time, I decide that night stroll in the gardens of the city of Kuru's shall be an ideal alternative. Albeit the autumn humidity, twilight rouses the pink chills of the coming winters, so I embrace myself with an amaranthine velvet shawl Draupadi had packed assertively and I could not help but thank my solicitor.

Breezes are throughout the dimly lit corridors cascaded in a crimson glow as the abendrot flames of the sooty diya dance on those sandstone walls ageing from years. The guards bow to me which I deny them to do so and walk ahead crossing my arms and engulfing the shawl on my upper body tightly to not allow the natural warmth any escape. The cloister with a quadrangle opened to the garden.

The winds swirl in the ashok trees and wafts the air with the scent of lilacs creating a soft hue purple carpet under her dainty white as snow feet as she grazes the fallen petals with her toes. Her gold anklets with a hexagonal emerald at each loop rings in the harmony of the night crickets. I am always taken by the woman I am watching before me oblivious of my presence.

Something in me, be it my intrigue or my civility, I dare to not indulge of my disposition in her soliloquy.

The comely princess is an epitome of pulchritudinous. The fair as milk complexion of hers is glimmering in the illumination of moon which glows in the glory of his full bloom. Seamlessly she moves her svelte fingers on the parchment residing in her lap. Her roseate as a hibiscus petal lips moves audibly and her neatly shaped brows clench together then rise with her emerald green eyes glazing in an exultation. When the breeze intensifies its harsh endeavours to steal parchments stacked on the tawny circular table, she gets annoyed. Housing the quail's quill in the red vermillion-charcoal inkpot, she stoops to collect them and her black as pitch night curly tresses in a loose braid slips from her slyphlike waist.

"Simran? What are you doing idly in there slouched behind the raspberry bush? Some insect might infect you, come here"

This is when Bhanumati, or I must say Bhabhishree Bhanumati sees me not hiding but refraining myself to not disturb her. I smile at her and peer over the teal tinctured bush harbouring burgundy berries in a bloom and in buds. Sometimes, I so wish that I shouldn't address her Bhabhishree, for I am satisfied with Jahnvi and never had a strong wish for a brother. Unequivocally if ever having a brother, he wouldn't be as Duryodhan.

"Just harvesting some ripe berries. I- its such a nice weather. Not so warm and not so cold. Are you writing?" wrapping my amaranthine velvety shawl on my arms and sogging a few raspberries in my hands I walk towards her who is like a pearl. Then I spill the truth with a sheepish smile.