(In a Mahabharata episode, Dushasana tries to dishonor Queen Draupadi by pulling off her sari.)
He unwinds length after length — is there no end? He’s dizzy with petals falling out of folds, hibiscus, fragrant champac, poppies. Drops of sweat trickle into his eyes, unbelieving as babies, spill from milk enclosures, teenage lovers, matrons, skulls. Dushasana swears at that garment’s flowing river, swirling refusals to come to an end; its flood escapes his angry hands, captures ankles, washes around his hips; choked by sudden suspicions whispering Draupadi’s real name, her secret stabs as he feels his own seasons unwind with her sari’s unloosening, old age tightens about his flesh, strips his bones. How he longs to let go, but his hands are fixed: Draupadi and he are linked, he stares at his delusion: nakedness is not for her nor for himself: even his skin is a screen short-lived: under earth his bones will nourish roots of stems to stand up like legs. Once more a man, he’ll find himself trying to unclothe what he mistakes as separate from self. Now he begins to guess the queen’s real names; as silk lengths linger in his palms, his eyes caress their royal colors; at last he starts to move to and fro, joined to the steps of a dance he senses can never end. Who is the captor? Who is the captured?
This translation first appeared in Chrysalis: Journal of the Swedenborg Foundation, and is reprinted with permission.
