Uruvi 2
Kunti loved Uruvi like her own child. 'Possibly because I don't have a daughter
myself, and bringing up five boys can be quite demanding,' she had laughed lightly, and
proceeded to proclaim that the dainty little princess would be the wife of one of her
sons. 'That way, she'll be with me always!' Queen Shubra had readily agreed and the
two friends had made a secret pact many years ago; one which both King Vahusha and
Uruvi were aware of but treated with indifference.
Uruvi's father allowed her to break free of norms while her mother tried hard to
restrain her from defying conventions. The daughter detested the unsaid decree which
demanded that a girl of a good family should be hidden away till it was time for her to
get married. She played with her friends in Hastinapur, sang and danced with her
cousins, rode horses with the Pandavas and the Kauravas, and climbed trees with Bhima
and Vikarna, the Kaurava prince.
A good many princes and young men, wealthy or noble, or both, had asked for
Princess Uruvi's fair hand in marriage, but much to her mother's consternation, Uruvi
had refused all of them. Her apprehensive mother worried that her daughter at sweet
nineteen should still be single. She demanded why the girl was being so finicky; it was
absurd to be so difficult.
Uruvi was charmingly obstinate. She found reasons to reject every one of her
suitors. So her exasperated mother thought of the only reasonable way out—a
swayamwara. She was pleasantly surprised when her otherwise mutinous daughter
agreed to it. The mother hoped Uruvi would finally garland a suitable prince; hopefully,
the soft-spoken, handsome Arjuna. Kunti might have been sweepingly magnanimous
about Uruvi choosing any one of the five Pandavas, but Shubra confessed that she was
most fond of Arjuna as a prospective son-in-law. He was surely the best choice—goodlooking, kind and brave. They would make a good match—he so tall and handsome, she
so slim and slight by his side. Heavens, she was already picturing them together.
Shubra's smile fell, downed with a growing sense of unease. The future seemed so
perfect but…it was this 'but' which kept coming between her best-laid plans and peace
of mind.
'Have you asked Uruvi whom she wants to marry?' asked Queen Shubra somewhat
sharply, turning to King Vahusha.
'No, but she will choose someone at the swayamwara anyway,' her husband
reasoned amiably. 'Invitations to almost all the kings and princely suitors have gone out.
We haven't missed any.'
'Don't you think it would be more appropriate if we knew whom she will choose
instead of us playing this guessing game?' persisted his wife. 'If I know her well, she is
likely to pick a boy whom I shan't approve of at all! She has an uncanny habit of
annoying me.'
'Oops, don't tell me she has fallen in love with that fat Dushasana! Now, that would
be a very nasty surprise!' said her husband playfully, but his queen did not look too
amused. 'She is more frank with you. Why don't you ask her yourself? In fact, I had
assumed she might have confided in you by now. Girls do fall in love, you know,' she
reminded him pointedly.
The King of Pukeya promised to be the responsible father and a conscientious
Uruvi's sheltered life had been a pursuit of perfection, but her privileged world
sometimes thwarted her. Uruvi imagined she came close to it as she painted beautiful
forms of nature, but then she longed for more. In Karna she had found an appearance and
personality so close to perfection that she could convince herself that her quest had been
fulfilled. That man from nowhere had created a tumult in her heart each time he had
strung his bow.
As a young woman in love, Uruvi saw in Karna all the qualities of a hero who was
not being permitted to be one. His flaws made him more interesting. At Hastinapur's
tournament when he had outdone Arjuna, he had been openly belittled as a charioteer's
son and deprived of his right to duel with the Pandava prince. As the King of Anga, he
was the inglorious ruler, looked down upon by royalty and the princes. As a noble
warrior, he was cast off for not being a kshatriya. As an eligible suitor, he was disgraced
for being of a lowly caste, a sutaputra—as Princess Draupadi had pithily reminded him
at her royal swayamwara. No, it was not very hard to fall in love with Karna, however
unsuitable a suitor he was condemned to be.
This man seemed to be born in adversity. Uruvi stared pensively at the small portrait
she had painted of him and kept hidden in her bedroom coffer. As his tales of gallantry
washed over from one kingdom to another, so did his saga of misfortune as the blighted
man with a legacy of low birth, a sutaputra. The story of his life was a fairytale gone
wrong. He was a beautiful orphaned baby, with bewitching kundals (earrings) and a
golden kavach (armour) to protect him, who had mysteriously strayed into a river and
into the lonely lives of Dhritarashtra's charioteer, Adhiratha, and his wife Radha.
The young Vasusena (or Karna, as he was better known, because of his sparkling
earrings) nursed a smouldering ambition to perform and excel and earnestly believed he
was destined for a better life. He did not wish to be a charioteer like his foster father,
but a warrior, an archer. With this dream, the young Radheya, the son of Radha as he was
also called, approached the best teacher of martial arts in Hastinapur—Guru
Dronacharya—the guru of the Kauravas and Pandavas, but the guru refused to teach him
because he was not a kshatriya.
Undaunted but deeply disappointed, he went to Parshurama, the guru of gurus in
warfare and sought his blessings. Radheya soon became Parshurama's best pupil and
showed the world his magnificent skills from a very young age. At the Hastinapur
archery contest he outdid Arjuna, the rising star of the Kuru dynasty and the kingdom's
most accomplished archer. But his moment of fame and credit crumbled when he was
questioned about his birth and lineage. Once again, he was turned down for being a
sutaputra, and had it not been for Duryodhana who in an unexpected burst of generosity
had gifted him the kingdom of Anga, he would not have been what he was—the most
formidable warrior in the country. Duryodhana had promoted the young sutaputra to
royalty, transforming him from Radheya, the son of Radha, to Karna, the mighty warrior
and the King of Anga.
Yet, pondered the princess, he was not allowed to bask in his well-earned glory. He
was Karna, the King of Anga, the king with a crown of thorns, the king who was a
sutaputra. He was a king not by birth, nor by worth. He would always be the sutaputra,
the eternal pariah. And yet, she, Uruvi, the pampered Princess of Pukeya, loved this man
most people treated with such scorn. It was easy to fall in love with Karna, Uruvi
decided, but it was difficult convincing others about its judiciousness. She wished to
wed him one day and if she dared to consider marrying him, she wondered what she was
going to do about it. Or rather, how she was going to go about it. For one, how was she
to get the discredited King of Anga invited to attend her swayamwara with the respect he
deserved?