“Atigyan”: The Paining Knowledge
By Manishankar Ratanji Bhatt, aka “Kavi Kant”
Translated by Sahdev Luhar
The far-off vision showed the empty sky
With unclear ways and a foe aside
The darkness had set all of sudden
Fuelling the city with a new burden
The men of Indraprasth were thinking today
Where this ablazed suspicion was on its play
A messenger sent by Duryodhan had come
Who looked like a rogue and a rough
He had appeared in the darkening night
And went to the royal home without fright
Why he had come - was a question that disturbed
All nodded their heads to a danger they confirmed
The hidden suspicion was getting clear
It was not without a reason
Dharmraj was invited to play the dice
With a malice intention of doing vice
The eldest Pandav consented with a yes
Later he invited three bothers to face
Sahdev was considered like a child
Hence they ignored him all alike
Others went to meet the king
With paining thoughts on the swing
The youngest was with Draupadi in his room
She could read his face that had lost its bloom
The youngest had the knowledge of future
He could see the far-off things clear
He had seen the defeat in the game
And a risk to Draupadi’s by shame
He knew it all but was not permitted to speak at all
The mind had set a duel and he had failed to sprawl
“Oh, I cannot save anyone
Just I have to cry as a weak man
This boon seems to me a paining curse
Bringing the past and future to rehearse”
“Shame! Shame! What an ungrateful man with this doom
I can see all but cannot make a single boom”
The thinking eyes are flowing with tears
The body had also lost its conscientious
Facing his wife’s breasts from near
Head fell on her loosing the pride sheer
The merged bodies separated many a times on that night
“My love! How can I touch you? I don’t have the right
All this knowledge is merely a vain
When you can’t stop the decided game
This pain bites my heart with every movement
I fight with my thousand selves in a moment
My dear! The night has many minutes
I have lost my slumber in a duel of eyelids
Fondling with your long black hair
I stare at your body moon-like fair”
His head ached on speaking these words
Lost his control to speak a more
The youngest made a severe cry
Said, “I should make this try!”
He stood up and held a bottle
Poured it into a glass and brought it to lips
He drenched his throat emptying the bottle
Forgot his pangs and was saved from throttle
The pious lady fell down on the bed with a smell
The omniscient lie with a glass at his bosom well.