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  • Uttaraa: Note to the Unborn Child
  • Karthika Naïr (bio)

They will tell you he was a hero, child: yourfather, my husband. They will swear he liveda glorious death: swift and valorous, the royalpath to heaven on gilded chariot driven by godsthemselves. Abhimanyu: martyr, maharathiace warrior, champion archer—hailed, in aweand fear, as Indra, as Yama, at once lifesaver,demolisher, and—variously—sheet lightning,ancient umbra, supernova, annihilatorof aksauhinis, elephants, evil ambition. They willsing of how he wrecked the padmavyuha, lotusphalanx of doom, defanged its deadly petals,smashed the spinning, hungry hub of a pistil,strewing armed enemy forces as so many sporesuntil seven Kaurav generals—all routed in onesand twos—girdled him in concert like a gristof killer bees, stung from behind and smotehis breath in one fell swoop.                                                 Choose, child, while still unborn; choose, for we                                                 no longer can, choose to remain free.His breath in one fell swoop, they will saythat's how it happened: blood-libation, liberation.But the dead have no songs, child. No melodiesfor regret or pain or pride. It is we who find and feedthem the songs, the words, rhythm, cadence,refrain; we who redye the moments, each one;friend, foe and father, grandfather god, dotingdowager, uncle-emperor, courtiers, seers, other [End Page 67] faded maws that scurry to rework histories,so you will learn and hold as truth a thousandstaves of what you never saw nor heard while nestedin soft caul. So you will repeat what, when,where, and why, the why, yes, why your father—land, pater, patria, one and many, heir to Kuru-Vrishni glory—vanished in this giant playgroundof carnage, of blocs, of left and right or east and westor wrong and right, Krishna's right, always rightby name and number, faith and tongue.                                                 Choose, child, while still unborn; choose, for we                                                 no longer can, choose to remain free.By name and number, faith and tongue, I cannotswear, but no path, no gilded chariots, no godsdo I see. I see scattered your father's brains, ruddypomegranates glistening through churned slush; seehis gaze—my husband's gaze, the gaze that heraldsmy night, my day—transpierced, dark grapes that imprintearth; see traces of his smile in a torn cheek, in sliveredjawbone; see entrails undone, crushed beneath a dozenarmoured wheels; see bubbles of scarlet last breathstraining—still—to rise from severed neck towarda cloven head: these lungs wish to live. With more speedand mercy did Death seize sweet Lakshmana, the cousin—once playmate—Abhimanyu killed: he slumps, spearedthrough throat and mast. An arm lies farther, my husband'sor a nameless, lost limb? Too much mud, too much blood,too much flesh has flowed to read the palm, to know his touchagain but this is mine, the pulse of ruby on a finger, placedlast spring, the day our hands were interlocked.                                                 Choose, child, while still unborn; choose, for we                                                 no longer can, choose to remain free.Last spring, the day our lives were interlocked, bardsfrom eight lands crooned of a match made in heaven.More lies, child, now set to music: we were made for a waralliance; sheer expedience, the vajra weddingband to join Matsya and Kuru lands, fuse our clout [End Page 68] to their repute. A dowry of divine pedigree, a seaof cavalry, prize warriors, and a seat in royal heaven.For that, if need be, our kin would have marriedtheir children off to a banyan tree. These matches madein heaven, the bards never sing, are just tinderfor preordained pyre. But even sticks may brush, maynestle, may intertwine. So it came to be: he wishedto build, not blaze, your father, the crown prince. For something—not quite trust, nor truly love—happened, somethinglike life, undesigned. The notion of future, earth's giftto our sixteenth year—the first, and only, summertogether—that swelled and curved to tempt him:a curled-up, compact quarter-moon in me.                                                 Choose, child, while still unborn; choose...

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