Fiction: Draupadi witnesses a grotesque act. Should she inform the police or protect her peace?

Draupadi was never so timid, not even in her childhood. As a child, she would cross dark streets alone in the evening hours quite comfortably to reach their neighbour’s house. During sunny summer afternoons when the streets were deserted, and the chirp of crickets shot through the air from the fields surrounding the village, creating dread in the minds of mischievous children, mothers would force them to lie down for a nap warning them that otherwise ghosts would appear. Draupadi dared crossing the streets alone to reach the pond at the end of the village. She would sit under the shadow of the gulmohar tree and throw pebbles into the pond. An intelligent student, she never hesitated to answer the teachers’ questions, whether they were aimed at her or not.

She wondered how this sense of dread, which couldn’t deter her during her childhood, overpowered her after she had grown up.

Draupadi felt there was a strong connection between responsibilities and dread, just as there existed one between wealth and hazards. During childhood, she was not smothered under the weight of responsibilities. Those days, her parents took all her responsibilities upon them. Her elder brother’s twin assurances, “Don’t worry. I’ll replace whatever...

Read more