It
was the ninth night of the war at Kurukshetra. The exact midpoint of the
legendary 18-day bloodbath. Not the start, not the end, but the middle. The war
had been inconclusive. Sometimes the Kauravas led by the old sire Bhisma had
the upper hand; sometimes the Pandavas led by the young warlord,
Dhristadhyumna, Draupadi’s twin brother, had the upper hand. A see-saw that was
going nowhere.
“Bhisma
loves us too much to defeat us,” said the Pandavas.
“Yet
not enough to let us win,” reminded Krishna. “He must die, if dharma has to be
established.” But Bhisma had been given a boon by his father that he could
choose the time of his death. No one could therefore kill him. “If we cannot
kill him, we must at least immobilize him.”
“But
no one can defeat him,” said the Pandavas. “Even the great Parashurama could
not overpower him in a duel. So long as he holds a weapon in his hand he is
invincible.”
“Then
we must make him lower his bow,” said Krishna.
“He
will never lower his bow before any armed man.”
“What
about an armed woman?”
“A
woman? On the battlefield?” sneered the Pandavas, forgetting they themselves
worshipped Durga, the goddess of war and victory. “But it is against dharma to
let women hold weapons and step on the battlefield.”
“Who
said so?” asked Krishna.
“Bhisma
says so. Dharma says so.”
“Dharma
also says that old men should retire and make way for the next generation so
that the earth’s resources are not exploited by too many generations. But Bhisma
did the very opposite. He renounced his right to marry, so that his old father
could resume the householder’s life,” argued Krishna.
“He
was being an obedient son.”
“He
was indulging his old father at the cost of the earth. That vow spiraled events
that has led to this war. It is time to be rid of him, by force or cunning, if
necessary. We must find someone before whom the old patriarch will lower his
bow. If not a woman, then someone who is not quite a man.”
“What
about Shikhandi!” said Dhristadhyumna. “He is my elder brother. He was born a
woman. But my father, Draupada, was told by the Rishis that he would one day
become a man. Though born with female genital organs, Shikhandi was raised a
son, taught warfare and statecraft. He was even given a wife. On his wedding
night, the wife, daughter of king Hiranyavarna of Dasharna, was horrified to
discover that her husband was actually a woman. My father tried to explain that
actually Shikhandi was a man with a female body and that Rishis had told him he
would someday acquire a male body. The woman refused to listen. She screamed
and ran to her father and her father raised an army and threatened to destroy
our city. A distraught Shikhandi went to the forest, holding himself
responsible for the crisis, intent on killing himself. There he met a Yaksha
called Sthunakarna who took pity on him and gave him his manhood for one night.
With the Yaksha’s manhood, Shikhandi made love to a concubine sent by his
father-in-law and proved he was no woman. The wife was therefore forced to
return. Now, it so happened, that Kubera, king of the Yakshas, was furious with
what Sthunakarna had done and so cursed Sthunakarna that he would not get his
manhood back so long as Shikhandi was alive. As a result what was supposed to
be with him for one night has remained with him till this moment. My elder
brother, Shikhandi, born with a female body, has a Yaksha’s manhood right now.
What is he, Krishna? Man or woman?”
Krishna
knew things were more complex. Shikhandi, may have been raised as a man and may
have acquired a manhood later in life, but in his previous life, he was a woman
called Amba, whose life Bhisma had ruined. Bhisma had abducted her along with
her sisters and forced them to marry, not him, but his weakling of a brother,
Vichitravirya (a name that means ‘queer masculinity’ or ‘odd manliness’). When
she begged Bhisma to let her marry the man she loved, he let her go. But the
lover refused to marry Amba, now soiled by contact with another man (Bhisma).
Distraught she returned, only to have Vichitravirya turn her away, and Bhisma
shrugging helplessly. “When you have taken the vow of never being with a woman,
what gave you the right to abduct me,” she yelled. Bhisma ignored her. Amba
begged Parashurama, the great warrior, to kill Bhisma but he failed.
Exasperated, irritated, she prayed to Shiva. “Make me the cause of his death,”
she begged. Shiva blessed her – it would be so, but only in her next life. Amba
immediately leapt into a pyre eager to accelerate the process.
“I
think, Shikhandi should ride into the battlefield on my chariot. Let Arjuna
stand behind him,” said Krishna. The tenth day dawned. The chariot rolled out.
Behind Krishna stood the strange creature, neither man nor woman, or perhaps
both, or neither, and behind him, Arjuna.
“You
bring a woman into this battlefield, before me,” roared Bhisma seeing
Shikhandi. “This is adharma. I refuse to fight.”
Krishna
retorted in his calm melodious voice, “You see her as a woman because she was
born with a female body. You see her as a woman because in her heart she is
Amba. But I see her as a man because that is how her father raised her. I see
her as a man because she has a Yaksha’s manhood with which he has consummated
his marriage. Whose point of view is right, Bhisma?”
“Mine,”
said Bhisma.
“You
are always right, are you not, Bhisma? When you allowed your old father to
remarry, when you abducted brides for your weak brother, when you clung to
future generation after future generation like a leech, trying to set things
right. There is always a logic you find to justify your point of view. So
now, Shikhandi is a woman – an unworthy opponent. That’s your view, not
Shikhandi’s view. He wishes to fight you.”
“I
will not fight this woman,” so saying Bhisma lowered his bow without even looking
towards Shikhandi.
“Shoot
him now, Shikhandi. Shoot him, now, Arjuna,” said Krishna, “Shoot hundreds of
arrows so that they puncture every inch of this old man’s flesh. Pin him to the
ground, immobilize him so that he can no longer immobilize the war.”
“But
he is like a father to me,” argued Arjuna.
“This
war is not about fathers or sons. This is not even about men or women, Arjuna.
This is about dharma. And dharma is about empathy. Empathy is about inclusion.
Even now, he excludes Shikhandi’s feelings – all he cares about is his version
of the law. Shoot him now. Rid the world of this old school of thought so that
a new world can be reconstructed.”
And
so Arjuna released a volley of arrows. Hundreds of arrows punctured every limb
of Bhisma’s body, his hands, his legs, his trunk, his thighs, till the
grandsire fell like a giant Banyan tree in the middle of a forest. It is said
that the earth would not accept him for he had lived too long – over four
generations instead of just two. It is said the sky would not accept him
because he had not fathered children and repaid his debt to ancestors. So he
remained suspended mid-air by Arjuna’s arrows.
With
the fall of Bhisma, the war moved in favor of the Pandavas. Nine days later,
the Kauravas were defeated and dharma had been established.
Without
doubt, Shikhandi changed the course of the war and played a pivotal role in the
establishing of dharma. He was without doubt a key tool for Krishna. A cynic
would say, Shikhandi was used by Krishna. A devotee will argue, Krishna made
even Shikhandi useful. But his story is almost always overlooked in retellings
of the great epic Mahabharata, or retold rather hurriedly, avoiding the
details. Authors have gone so far as to conveniently call the Sthunakarna
episode a later interpolation, hence of no consequence.
Shikhandi
embodies all queer people – from gays to lesbians to Hijras to transgendered
people to hermaphrodites to bisexuals. Like their stories, his story remains
invisible. But the great author, Vyasa, located this story between the ninth
night and the tenth day, right in the middle of the war, between the start and
the finish. This was surely not accidental. It was a strategic pointer to
things that belong neither here nor there. This is how the ancients gave voice
to the non-heterosexual discourse.
Shikhandi
embarrases us today. Sthunakarna who willingly gave up his manhood frightens us
today. But neither Shikhandi nor Shthunkarna embarrassed or frightened Krishna
or Vyas. Both included Shikhandi in the great narrative. But modern writers
have chosen to exclude him. That is the story of homosexuals in human society.
Homosexuals have always existed in God’s world but more often than not manmade
society has chosen to ignore, suppress, ridicule, label them aberrants,
diseased, to be swept under carpets and gagged by laws such as 377. They have
been equated with rapists and molesters, simply because they can only love
differently.
Indian
society, however, has been a bit different from most others. Like all cultures,
Indian culture for sure paid more importance to the dominant heterosexual
discourse. But unlike most cultures, Indian culture did not condemn or
invalidate the minority non-heterosexual discourse altogether. Hence the tale
of Shikhandi, placed so strategically. Hence the tale of Bhangashvana, retold
by none other than Bhisma to the Pandavas, after the war before he chose to
die.
I
am fortunate enough to say that my family, both maternal and paternal always
clarified the questions we asked of them. As a child, I asked my parents
as to why Shikhandi was described as both man and woman. They answered
explaining the detailed story, including the Yaksha part. They taught me to
consider these examples of people not as men or women, but just as humans, who
feel, who live just as we do.
I
am just making an effort to help people understand that Krishna, who created us
all, is a loving god and does not differentiate between us on basis of whom we
choose to love.
