The Cold Tower

2 years ago

proteeti

@sambhavami

For the first eleven days of the festival, the royal palace of Dwarka seemed rather small in the face of the hordes of brahmins, kshatriyas and ordinary people who had flocked to the island in the hopes of generous donations on this occasion. Krishna himself remained engaged in performing the yajna from sunrise to sunset. Throughout the day, Yashoda sat knitting, on the balcony overlooking the yajna grounds, gazing at Krishna. Once she had seen him, she felt as though she couldn't bear to let him out of her sight for another moment!

Alas, despite however much she wanted to keep him close to herself, but at night she had to let him go. Every time Krishna left the altar at the moonrise, throngs of people would throw themselves at his feet, hoping for just a sideways glance or to have their outstretched palms even lightly brush against his feet. Yashoda would watch enraptured, as Krishna would patiently work his way through the crowd, smiling and interacting with the people that gathered around him. Yashoda could never see where Krishna went from the yajna grounds. The crowd always seemed to cut him off her sight.

However, time to time, she did manage to get some updates from his wives, Satyabhama and Jambavati. Apparently, after the day's prayers, Krishna would proceed to the dinner grounds to oversee dinner for all guests. He would go to bed past the second prahara of the night, only to rise before sunrise the next day. "Doesn't he get tired?" Yashoda would exclaim, "How much longer can he keep this up?!"

Satyabhama would laugh sadly, "Good luck getting him to understand that! He is too concerned for the well-being of the citizens to care for his own health."

"Thank the Gods that this yajna lasts only eleven days!" Jambavati would add.

At times Yashoda felt a strong urge to simply run to him, but in these battles reason prevailed. Surely, having his former foster mother fawning over him was not the image Krishna was looking to build. Added, Yashoda hadn't met his actual parents yet. At least not after Krishna had reunited with them. Nanda had met them briefly, but Yashoda was too proud to ask him how it had went. Balarama made it a point to visit her at least once a day, and Subhadra checked in on them at mealtimes, but apart from that no one in the family had really made an effort to come see her. Even though outwardly they were getting a VIP treatment, Yashoda imagined that her position in Krishna's complicated history made it  quite dificult for anyone in his family to reach out to her without significant awkwardness. Truth be told, she preferred it to people sucking up to her just to get in Krishna's good graces. The ongoing festival did not make things any easier.

However, on the auspicious days, when she completed her rituals quietly, sitting in one corner of the temple instead of at the centre, surrounded by the women of her tribe, she found herself sorely missing her quiet little village. She would stare longingly at Rohini, now reinstated in her rightful place at the heart in Vasudeva's household. She was startled at first to see the change in Rohini's demeanor. Her face seemed to shine, a smile always lighting up the room. Even after all those years of living and working at each other's side, Yashoda had never known that Rohini knew how to sing. Now as she listened to her best friend's lilting voice filling up the beautiful room at the juncture of night and day, accompanied by her daughter and daughter-in-law, Yashoda couldn't help a short pang of jealousy rise through her throat, which she promptly pushed in much deeper and clapped dutifully at the end of the melody.

---

Nanda had already met his brother Vasudeva and his wife Devaki on the day they arrived. He had been horrified to find Vasudeva still twitching at the faintest noise, and Devaki mostly lost in her own thoughts. Their long imprisonment under Kamsa's reign had clearly left its mark on the two of them. Rohini had been too busy to meet them in person. In fact, Nanda and Yashoda did not get to meet her till several days later. As a result, the responsibility for catering to them had fallen mostly on Balarama's wife Princess Revati. Nanda had been a little disappointed at first at the apparent disregard, but Revati had quickly won him over with her attention to detail and a rather dry sense of humour.

To him, the best part of this trip so far had been Revati's little daughter Shashirekha. The toddler had taken to following Nanda like a duckling all over the palace, breaking into sobs if he set even a toe outside the palace without her.

Whenever she saw them together, Revati would complan, "Don't encourage her tantrums! If she doesn't let you go, I'm going to send her back to Gokula with you, and you can have fun raising a daughter," She would laugh, "At this age, no less!" She would add after a suggestive pause.

"And you're what, a millennium old? Fancy having you pull the age card!" Nanda would chime back while hoisting the child up on his shoulders after feeding her a bucket of butter.

They both knew of the emotional dagger that threatened to pierce through Nanda's heart at any time. Revati did not seem to care. When Revati had come up to them to introduce herself the first day, she had been extra kind to Yashoda. "I'm on your side," she had whispered, as she embraced Yashoda. Of course, they had been talking about choosing the best south-facing room at that time, but in his heart, Nanda knew of her anger at the very first glance. Nanda recognized that Revati's constant quips were the least that he deserved for making that choice all those years ago. It was only fair that before he could face Krishna again, he would have to navigate this river of fire as Revati seemed to channel the opinion of most of the women in the palace.

---

Out of Krishna's wives, even though Jambavati and Satyabhama had warmed up to Yashoda considerably, Rukmini never seemed comfortable around her. Then again, she seemed comfortable with no one. She came out of her room only to fulfil her part in the yajna as Krishna's royal consort, after which she promptly returned to her quarters. Even the esteemed guests or the various programmes hosted in their honour couldn't stop her from retreating. Yashoda would quietly notice how Krishna's face would fall every time she refused his pleas to stay beside him any longer that absolutely necessary. Her heart ached as she saw Krishna turn from each interaction with a bright smile and a joke on his lips when just a moment before he had been just one more step from completely breaking down in middle of the yajna groud.

After several days of observing her, Yashoda finally asked one day, "Does she not like participating in such festivals?"

"She has been like that ever since the child was lost! She hardly talks to us," answered Satyabhama, "And who could blame her? It has been almost a year now, and I still cannot stop my tears when I see that empty crib. To think he wasn't even my own child!"

Jambavati sighed, "Now she seems like a mere husk of the person she was. I miss that happy twinkle in her eye! I only wish she would let us into that tower of despair she has imprisoned herself in!"

Satyabhama shook her head, "Even Krishna only pretends to be happy in front of others. He was devastated! He blames himself for what happened. I've seen him stare out into the ocean for hours with his fists clenched. He even fights with us when we suggest otherwise. I do not understand how a man who shows such unbounded compassion for those around him can be so unkind to himself! He forgave my father who accused him of being a greedy thief, and yet he fails to forgive himself!"

Jamavati nodded, "Krishna and Rukmini used to be the happiest people we knew, and look at them now! It kills us to see them in such pain!"

Yashoda quietly brushed away a tear. "Why did the princess not return to her father's place for the birth of the child?" She asked.

"Krishna feared that her brother might imprison her there to exact revenge on him!" said Jambavati.

"That poor child!" Yashoda exclaimed, "Did her mother also not come?"

Satyabhama answered, "Her mother, the blessed queen Sudhimati, passed away in her childhood only. Rukmini always says how much she misses her! Mothers Rohini and Devaki try their best, but who can replace your own mother, right?"

"My mother also left us, many, many moons back. Still, not a day goes by when I don't miss her! My father already cannot get enough of our Krishna. I wish she could have met him!" Jambavati smiled.

Yashoda sighed, "No wonder she's going through such a hard time! Such events are difficult enough when you're surrounded by family, but to be living in a foreign land, stripped of all that is familiar, I cannot even imagine how tough it must be!" Her concerns for her son however she left unsaid, unsure of how it might be perceived. He had his own mother to worry about him now, after all.

---

Krishna had spotted his foster parents around the palace on the very first day of the yajna. In fact, every day of the yajna he had seen Yashoda sitting on the balcony quietly knitting a small sweater, and Nanda sitting on a lower pedestal right behind Vasudeva, humming along with the sacred hymns. One did not become the most powerful person on the earth by missing these kinds of things.

Why had he not talked to them then? It was the same question that Krishna asked himself every night as he drifted into an exhausted sleep. Fear? Guilt? Anger? Even Krishna could not ascertain. All he knew was that every time he tried to walk up to them, his throat closed with emotion, his eyes threatened to water and then he simply walked away. Maybe it was time? Maybe, he had put too much time in between himself and his parents, and now they were simply too far away.