I was five when I heard the word curse for the first time—not in a story, but in the street. It came out of the mouth of a vendor as casually as the price of rice.

  “Pandu has left the city,” the man muttered as he poured lentils into a cloth sack. “They say he was cursed. Couldn’t touch his wife again, or he’d die.”

  The woman buying from him made a sound between disbelief and pity.

  “Must be karma. You don’t kill a sage’s son and escape fate.”

  I was walking behind them, small feet in worn sandals, bancing a wooden cup filled with water for my mother. But I froze.

  Pandu. Curse. Wife. Exile.

  I knew the words. Not from my new life, but from the old one. From the smoky air of my grandmother’s kitchen. From the candle-lit stories that lulled me to sleep while rain tapped on our windows.

  Pandu—the white-haired king, the calm one, the one who left the throne behind.

  They said he had killed a sage—mistaking him for a deer. And the curse that followed? That he would die the moment he embraced his wife with desire in his heart.

  He left to protect her. And himself.

  In the story, it was tragic. Clean. Noble.

  But in the streets of Hastinapur?

  It was gossip.

  The City ReactsThe people didn’t weep for their king. They didn’t sing of sacrifice. They did what people do when power shifts—they adjusted.

  They specuted.

  They whispered.

  They moved on.

  “He should have known better—hunting without knowing his target.” “That’s what happens when kings think they’re gods.” “At least now Dhritarashtra will rule. Poor man, blind but not stupid.”

  Some even ughed.

  And I understood, in that moment, what the Mahabharata never showed:The people didn’t live in the epic. They lived under it.

  The Births BeginThat same month, the city buzzed again.

  Whispers rushed like wind between thatched huts and royal walls.

  Queen Madri was pregnant. Kunti too.

  But no one had seen Pandu return.

  And the math didn’t make sense.

  The midwives talked more than the soldiers. Servants carried tales on their shoulders like grain.

  “They say it’s gods,” one woman said while sweeping the temple steps. “Kunti has mantras. Can call down gods like prayers made flesh.”

  “Madri too?” another scoffed.

  “Maybe he left her the mantras. Or maybe the gods weren’t too picky.”

  The words made me pause.

  I sat on the stone ledge near the well, pretending to whittle a stick. But I was listening.

  Gods as fathers. Mortal women as bridges. Sons of divinity born into a cursed house.

  I knew this part. Yudhishthira was first—son of Dharma.

  Next came Bhima, born of Vayu, god of wind. He would have strength beyond comprehension. The one who would drink poison and smile.

  And then, Arjuna—Indra’s son. The archer, the focus, the future.

  And with Madri, the Ashvins would give her twins—Nakul and Sahadeva.

  That was the script.

  But now, I was watching the stage be built.

  Bhima’s ArrivalI heard it before I saw anything: the cheering from the royal section of the city. People banging pots, garnds thrown from balconies, children mimicking trumpets with hollow reeds.

  “Another prince!” someone shouted.

  “Kunti has delivered. A rge boy. Already kicking like a horse, they say!”

  I stood outside the training yard, watching the dust shimmer in the sunlight, and tried to picture baby Bhima.

  The child who would one day fight Rakshasas, duel elephants, smash chariots with bare hands.

  And yet—right now—just a baby, red-faced and screaming, tucked in cloth.

  He wasn’t myth yet.He was just noise and hope.

  Duryodhana Is BornWeeks ter, more celebration. But quieter. More measured.

  “Queen Gandhari has given birth,” the servants whispered.

  “To a boy?”

  “Yes. But they say it wasn’t easy.”

  “She was pregnant for two years.”

  “No—it wasn’t one child. She gave birth to a lump. Flesh. And from that, sages say, came the boy.”

  The tone was not reverence. It was suspicion.

  I watched my father speak softly with a fellow soldier that night.

  “Duryodhana,” he said. “The boy will be strong. But the omens were dark.”

  “Do you believe them?”

  “I believe too many warnings were ignored.”

  My mother didn’t speak that night. But she hummed an old prayer while cooking.

  That meant she was worried.

  Arjuna and the CracksWhen Arjuna was born, the city didn’t react the same way.

  They were already too used to miracles.

  “Another god-son,” someone said ftly. “Maybe they’ll raise a temple just for the family at this point.”

  But among the warriors, the tone shifted.

  I watched my father that night again, quietly oiling his sword.

  “Indra’s son,” he said. “Born to be the greatest. Even Drona will smile for this one.”

  That caught my attention.

  Drona.The name would mean everything ter.

  But for now, I just stored it away.

  Public Disbelief and Private FearWhat struck me more than anything was how ordinary the miracles felt to everyone around me.

  The Mahabharata made it sound like the heavens parted. That gods descended in beams of light. That the births of the Pandavas were heralded by thunder and flowers from the sky.

  But here? It was all word of mouth. Politics. Rumors. Shrugs.

  No one knew what was truth. No one needed it to be true. They just needed it to make sense of what came next.

  The sons of gods had arrived.

  But the people were more interested in whether food prices would rise.

  My ReactionFor weeks, I didn’t sleep well.

  I would lie on my mat, staring at the thatched roof above me, hearing the names echo in my skull.

  Yudhishthira. Bhima. Arjuna. Duryodhana.

  They were children now. Real, living children, sleeping in silk and guarded by spears.

  And I was a child too. But no one would guard me.

  “If I know what happens next… should I try to change it?”

  The question returned again and again.

  But every time I thought of speaking, something in me stopped.

  A quiet voice—maybe hers—saying:

  “Not yet. Watch first. Write. Then decide.”

  Closing MomentI returned to the neem tree outside our house.

  With a new piece of cloth, and fresh charcoal.

  And I wrote:

  “Bhima is born. Duryodhana walks the same earth. Arjuna will soon hold a bow.

  But no one saw the curse. No one felt the moment the epic shifted.

  They think this is the beginning of greatness.

  I know it is the beginning of war.”