Daughter of the Mountains - II

The next evening as the sun was going down in the west, Ganga walked toward the tent that the charanas had set up for her and her friends and attendants. As she entered the tent, the girls were giggling at a private joke. Ganga herself was bursting with happiness. As she walked in, all the girls broke off their laughter at once and stared at her. She felt a blush creep up to her face.

                “What” she cried, trying hard not to smile.

                “Nothing at all, my princess” said the youngest of the girls, a slender fair skinned girl of ten and four named Nandini. “They were wondering if we will all be moving to Hastinapura now.”

                “Now why ever would they get such an idea?” said Ganga laughing. They all laughed as well.

                They teased her throughout dinner, but she remained silent, lost within herself smiling and laughing at their jokes without even listening to what they were saying. Later, she lay awake tossing and turning, pretending to be asleep as the girls continue to chatter until one by one, they all too fell asleep. Suddenly, Ganga felt something move at her leg and turned around.

                It was Alaka, her closest fried among the girls. She was crept across to Ganga and lay down beside her covering herself with the same, huge sheepskin blanket as Ganga.

                “So tell me” she whispered.

                Ganga turned to the curious dark eyes staring at her in the half light of the dying embers of the fire that lay smoking in the centre of the tent.

                “We talked all day.”

                “Come now, Ganga. I know that. Tell me what you talked about my princess.”

                “The king has graciously proposed that we be wedded.”

                “And? Did you say yes?”

                “Not right away. How could I?”

                “Still you did agree?”

                Ganga nodded silently.

                “Are you sure about this, my princess?” asked her friend. “You will need to go away to Hastinapura.”

                “I know, I know” replied the princess of the Kushikas, sighing softly. “I thought a lot about this. I am not of age with him. True, I am a princess and it might even serve to flatter myself by saying that I am still beautiful, but you know as well as me, Alaka. I am not young.”

                “My princess,” said the girl, “you may easily pass for a girl of ten and eight, I daresay.”

                “Still the Lord of Time awaits no one. Ten years hence, I might not be as beautiful and the good king will be in the prime of youth. What then? I must need to safeguard my position and my freedom if I become the queen of the Kurus. So I laid down a condition.”

                “What did you say?”

                “I asked of the king that I never be questioned for my acts, nor reprimanded. He is to never raise objection to either any of the things I do, nor question my intentions behind them.”

                Alaka smiled. “What young lover would say no to that? How much I would that all lovers honour that promise, that and the promise to get us the moon.”

                “That is not all” said Ganga. “I have also told the king that he would ever break his word, I would leave him and never return again.”