Last Lament

Just before my death, my whole life stood before me like a ghost from its tomb. Death came to me with a lantern on a boat, flowing through the river of unconsciousness, guiding me to its shore. But that light has no warmth in it, no consolation, no pity. Perhaps this IS the beginning of consciousness- the true awakening of soul.
Yes, there is no pain in the end. Just the knowledge of being. A terrible indiscernible lightness , that shrouds like a weightless hood.
For days I watched the dead being burnt at the shores. For days, I heard the cries of the widows and orphans, the shrill hoots of the vultures circling the sky , above the cry of men, some wounded asking for water, some dead, some dying, all in heaps. For days, I watched the evening sky as red as the blood soaked earth of the battleground. For days, I cringed with agony, not of my wounds, but at of knowledge of my fate, paralyzed by my own helplessness. I writhed at the juxtaposition my destiny has brought me onto.
But it will be soon over now. The arrows still stab at my chest, the heart slowly drawing in the poison, but I feel no pain now. Unlike the brief numbness of severed tissues, there is prolonged relief as last.
I know that I am dying. Just like the millions around me. Hundreds of dead and dying kings and nobles are gasping and writhing for life.
My sky is sullen and mute. Sounds are drowning in. The wall cave in around me. Yes this is the end. It must be. Yes, I am that doomed man.

My parents were poor fishermen folks. But I am no fisherman. I had the knowledge of my difference from a very young age. My parents were kind and loving, I loved them, but I knew my destiny was elsewhere. When later in life, I found out that I was adopted, it did not come as a great surprise. I figured that much out a long time ago. My parents say that they found me by the riverside one fateful morning, wearing armor and an amulet. Armor and amulet were a part of my body, they grew as I grew up. My parents said that they were lucky for me. I never took them off.
I was fascinated with the royalty from a very young age. Perhaps that was my destiny and my impending doom. For, yet again, I was drawn to politics as my fate intertwined and clashed with the fate of kings and princes. But I had no high regard for the royalty. I knew this very well, that after the game is over, both the king and the pawn went into the same box. But, I was never cut out as the pawn; I aspired to be the nobility. Even though, I was told that nobility was a birthright, not a karma. Against my parents wishes, I made friends with Duryodhan, the man who saved my life, befriended me and gave me my honor. He was to become my greatest friend and one day, my downfall. But how can I blame him for my end? He was my greatest champion and mentor. A man, who befriended me at my darkest hour, sheltered me under his cloak of royalty, so that I could get the same privileges as the royal family did. We did not always agree but we were bonded to be friends for life.
The haughty Pandavas. It is them I hated , especially Arjun, the man who thought he had conquered the universe already.
I detested and despised them, their superiority to the subservient class, to be always surrounded by sycophants, always waited upon hand and foot since childhood. My youth was spent around them, watching how as the Kuravas and Pandavas grew up, as their petty, childish squabbles became more and more serious and ultimately an ugly game of power.
And then there was Draupadi, I had seen her once in the royal palace, lissome and dark, kohl-lined eyes caught my heart like no other. But I bore the insult she gave me by refusing to marry me for being the son of a commoner just as I bore the pain of her falling in love with Arjun and subsequently the neglect she bore from him. I would have treated her like a queen, but married to five brothers she was just their bonded maid. It wrung my heart. I protested and fought with Duryodhan for the first time when they decided to shame Draupadi in public. “It is nothing personal, it is just politics” Duryodhan said to me, “ You see we have to find a reason to oust the Pandavas out of our kingdom”. But that day, when I saw Bhima swore revenge, I knew it was very very personal. And that was the end, of Kuruvangsh.
And I knew that was the end of me.
I have been rejected by not one, but two women, both I loved both I lost. I knew I was not the son of fishermen. I knew I was born nobility. But I also knew that I have been abandoned at birth. I longed for the day I shall meet my real parents, my own mother. I wanted to be accepted by her. And when it happened, it came with a price. The price of my life.
That day, in Kurukshetra, Kunti came to me, crying and admitting that she was my mother and begging for the life of Arjun, her other son.
Oh, such an agony. To be denied of love. To be denied of a name.
What else was there to live for. Nothing. I told Kunti that only one of her son would live to see tomorrow. I knew what to do. For since birth, I knew my destiny. I took off my armor and amulet and went for the battle, next day.
I knew what was coming, but I did not know that Arjun would not even give me a fair chance to fight back. OH! To be killed like a commoner, while removing my chariot from the rut into which the wheels had fallen.
But the pain receded as sun shone back from the sullen clouds. No, there was no physical pain now, just a gnawing mental agony. No, I had contemplated death, but not this kind of death. I closed my eyes and grit my teeth and let myself drown into the tumultuous thoughts that preyed on me. Demons gnawed through my vitals and searing heat of the last insult came back to scorch me. The pain was not in death. The pain was - even in death, fate has tricked me of what I deserve.
Why was I denied of a hero’s death?
Why?