The Bend in the Road (A Karna-Arjun what-if story)

The idea of younger brothers

Karna's pov

It was the first time Karna viewed his brothers as his brothers. It appeared that exchanging a sorry was the swiftest--though undeniably the most difficult--way to banishing all ill feeling. Radha Maa had been trying to teach him that from childhood. Vrushali tried to teach that to all their sons, too.

Karna had never appreciated it before.

To celebrate the occasion of Bheem having initiated an apology, Drishtadyumna generously offered his enormous pitcher of lassi around to everyone.

Arjun skipped Bheem and passed it straight to Nakul.

"Arjun," said Yudhishthir. Even his neutral tone seemed to make his reproach clear to his brother.

"If you let Bhrata Bheem catch hold of it for two seconds, jyesht, there would be nothing left for us," said Arjun.

"But it is for me that Drishtadyumna is sharing in the first place," protested Bheem.

Abhimanyu was laughing (no surprises). Under his influence, both Vrishasena and Vrishaketu were grinning as well.

Nakul told aside to Karna, "When Panchali sends anything over, her message gets modified according to who receives it. If Bhrata Drish receives it, she has sent it only for her twin brother. If Bhrata Bheem receives it, she has sent it only for her second oldest husband."

Karna found himself joining in the general laughter, and felt absurdly grateful towards Nakul for trying to include him.

It dawned on him that he would not mind being included among his brothers if they did not mind.

And they did not seem to.

It was not entirely comfortable for Karna to spend a couple of hours with a bunch of people who spoke in the language of inside jokes and were so in sync with each other that they did not seem to need anyone else. Well, they did seem to accept Drishtadyumna and the kids, including Karna's sons, with perfect friendliness, but there was always something complete about the five Pandava brothers.

Abhimanyu looked the happiest of all throughout the evening. Karna wondered if he was trying to cover up how he had been affected by Iravan's death; Vrishaketu said Abhi used to look up to Iravan no end since he had discovered his oldest blood brother. None of his other cousins, except Srutakarma who was around the same age, were his blood brothers.

Whatever Karna felt for his blood brothers, he adored his nephew. He was quite prepared to challenge the coldest person to get to know Abhi and not adore him.

"Vrish," Karna heard Abhimanyu whispering to Vrishaketu. "Do you know what I did? I preached at my father and uncles that they need to grow up and give up the animosity towards your father--"

As Vrishaketu sniggered, Abhimanyu caught Karna's sardonic look and lowered his eyes innocently.

"I hope you are not offended, Angaraj, I only did it for the greater good," he said.

The phrase, which coming from Vasudev sounded ominous, was hilarious from Abhi.

"No," said Karna, smiling. "How can I be offended when you did it for the greater good, Abhi?"

But it was the weirdest thing how he found no hatred at all anymore in his heart for his brothers. He wondered if he had stopped hating them the very day Queen Mother Kunti had told him the truth. 

There was something about the idea of younger brothers that had done strange things to him. Maybe it was because he had grown up isolated from society, constantly wary of trusting anyone. He would never have turned down the idea of having five brothers. He had simply never considered that he might get a chance of having these five as his younger brothers.