Bhima’s thirst brought forth
a girl’s nervous laughter from
behind a bush, then her dark body
holding water vesseled in a leaf.
Wild honey and wild fruit lay at her feet.
Not knowing the same
language, all that was exchanged
between them must’ve been
a languid glance;
then, their drinking of each other.
This too, Hidimba explained to Bhima,
was a marriage.
A strange light, a strange love, shone
in her eyes as she spoke.
Aryaputra Bhima
learnt something new that day.
It’s still the same in the
land of the Mahabharata:
a different law of love for those
who make history, and
for those who sneak up
from behind its pages
with wild honey and wild fruit.
