Oh, for a normal birth!

(Ramayan version here)


The Mahabharat. The greatest story ever told. Immortals. Beds of arrows. Brothers asking sisters to elope. Honest gamblers. Polygamy. Polyandry. Exiles. Bloodthirsty wars. Gluttonous superheroes. Eunuch reincarnations. Names like Dhrishtadyumna and Vichitravirya. Sledging charioteers. Quizzing storks. I mean, what else can one ask for?

However, the most intriguing bit of the Vyas-Ganesh magnum opus is possibly the incredible ways in which the characters were born. I mean, this is not just your everyday wham-bang-pregnancy-prenatal-gynaecologist-morning sickness-ultrasound-folic acid-calcium tablets-delivery date-OT-mubarak ho stuff. These are spectacular incidents, each surpassing the other.

Let us start with possibly the greatest of them all:

Shantanu's Gang-War:
The story goes like this: Vashishtha had cursed the eight Vasus (well, eight of the Gods, for the sake of simplicity), and they had to be born as humans. For whatever reason they preferred to have Ganga as their mother. Now, Ganga got married to the hapless Shantanu under well-defined terms and conditions: if he questioned any of her activities, however weird, she'd leave him.

Thus happy, Shantanu went on making merry and reproducing sons at will (making love to rivers, I presume, is fun). Ganga went on a infanticide spree as soon as her sons were born by drowning them in herself, thereby citing possibly the earliest example of a cyclic redundancy.

It took the loss of seven sons to make Shantanu realise that something was wrong somewhere, so he just felt like asking a question or two. Ganga realised that he didn't have a very good aqueous humour, and didn't think very highly of her drowing act. So off she went, merging into herself (argh!), leaving a son called Devavrata behind. After Padma, Bhagirathi, Hooghly and numerous ox-bow lakes, Devavrata (or Bhishma) remains Ganga's longest-living first-generation progeny.

Note: Bhishma did not have a son, and was still referred to as pitamah (grandfather) by many. This included The Pandavs, whose real grandparents are of somewhat mysterious identities.

Bharadwaj Taking Pot Luck:
Let us move elsewhere. A sage called Bharadwaj was having a bath in (yes, you've guessed it right) The Ganga. Now, all of a sudden there comes one of the lesser-known apsaras - Ghritachi (Google invariably asks did you mean Hitachi?).

What does our hero do? Well, to put it rather subtly, he emitted vital fluids. Since this was pre-newspaper era, and he didn't think of leaves or grass as capable wipes, he ejaculated inside a pot (in case you're not aware, drona is the Sanskrit for a pot).

These days garbage bins are hard to locate in big Indian cities. Ages back, they apparently had, well, fluid-pots lined up for geared-up rishis in popular apsara-sighting spots. Sigh.

Coming back to the story, Drona was born in the pot itself. Hence the name. When he grew up he was apparently very proud of the fact that he was born without a mother. Something on the lines of "did you know what my father did when he saw Ghritachi..."?

Note: Ghritachi, despite not as glamorous as Menaka, Urvashi or Rambha, was apparently a specialist in such incidents, and would come back to haunt Indraprastha. She was (yes, again) successful in getting someone else to perform a similar action, this time no less than Vyas himself. With no pot around, Vyas released "stuff" in the fire, and out came Shukdev, who recited Bhagwat Puran to Parikshit, a grandson of Arjun.

Creepy stuff:
The apsaras kept striking back with the contemporary practice of loitering in the nude and making celibates ejaculate. This time it was an even lesser one called Janapadi. She was sent on purpose by Indra to seduce the mighty Sharadwan, who looked menacing enough to usurp his throne. This apparently happened in a place with lesser facilities than the one mentioned before, so his "fluid" was released on weeds. This gave birth to twins called Kripa and Kripi. The former went on to become the kulguru of Hastinapur. The latter got married to Drona.

Note: The epic doesn't include this possible conversation between Drona and Kripa:

Kripa: What? You want to marry my sister? Do you know who my father was? He got us by doing weeds!

Drona: So? Mine got me by doing pots!

The author steps in:
Things had taken a dramatic turn back in Hastinapur. Shantanu had remarried, this time to a fisherwoman called Satyavati (the guy did love water after all!). This was more of a normal marriage with sons not being drowned and questions being asked.

They had two sons. The elder, Chitrangad (no, Chitrangada was not named after him) died childless pretty soon (apparently fighting a namesake yaksha on the grounds that they were namesakes - I'd probably been dead ages back if they still had this notion), and it was left to Vichitravirya to carry out the rather pleasurable responsibilities of keeping the flag along. Soon enough, Bhishma kidnapped a threesome of sisters (with cute incremental names like Amba, Ambika, Ambalika) for him to try out (I shall not become king; I shall not marry or have children myself; I shall kidnap random princesses for my step-brother to play with: I mean, this even beats Mohnish Behl in Hum Saath Saath Hain). It's another story that the eldest of the three, Amba, didn't oblige, was rejected by all and sundry and cursed Bhishma. We'd come to that.

It didn't work out, though. His Majesty was impotent, and hence died childless as well.

So what does Satyavati do? Wait and watch the legacy to come to an end? Never. She calls upon the author of the book himself and, well, asks him to get along with the sisters-cum-soutens. Ambika closed his eyes (before the act, not during it) and Ambalika turned pale at first sight. The results? Their sons were born a blind and an albino, respectively. Judging by the results, Michelle McNally's mother had possibly emulated the three monkeys simultaneously at first sight.

Note: Satyavati, for some reason, wanted to give Ambika a 2-1 lead over Ambalika (who apparently kept on saying her own name - I'm balika! - when approached with the offer). But Ambika wasn't apparently interested, so she had a maid impersonating her. She kept her eyes (and, well, forget it) wide open and didn't change colours at inappropriate times, so she gave birth to a pious, intelligent, decent son called Vidur.

But why did Satyavati invite Vyas, when there were definitely thousands of others? That would take us to another story...

Fishy stuff:
Apparently Satyavati didn't have a very clean track record herself. She had a few non-trivial moments with Rishi Parashar, and got pregnant. She gave birth to, and subsequently rejected, her son in a deserted island on The Yamuna (another river, finally!); this son got to be known as Dwaipayan (Sanskrit for Son of an Island), and was popularly known as Vyas (Sanskrit for diameter; I wonder why).

So basically, it was an oh-I-had-sinned-in-deserting-you-and-want-to-make-up-by-asking-you-to-have-a-go-at-your-step-sisters-in-law act. Pretty commonplace, I suppose, in those days. Had the Pandavas died early, Karna might have had a go.

Note: Satyavati's own birth was equally bizarre. She was born of the Chedi King Vasu (a human, this time), and another apsara, Adrika.

A pot? No.

Weeds? No.

A real session, then? Yes.

Absolutely normal stuff, then? No.

What's the catch? She was disguised as a fish.

It had to happen in water, then, I presume. Let's just hope its not Ganga. By the way, Satyavati was also known as Matsyagandha (someone who reeks of fish). Her surprising ability at seduction might have made a quality commercial for deodorants.

God knows what she did:
Kunti was possibly the first known person to be actually blessed by Durvasa. This was actually achieved by Draupadi and Duryodhan in later incidents, but just like Kolkata and Metro Rail, Gavaskar and 10,000, Kunti was the first.

Now, what blessing did Durvasa usher upon Kunti? She had the ability to call any (I repeat, any) God at any given point of time and get herself impregnated.

This was, of course, too good to be true for a girl in her adolescence, and she didn't accept it just like that. She needed proof. How does one verify such a thing? By trying it out once. But what if an unmarried girl got pregnant, just like that? Who cares?

Surya was summoned. I'm not sure how this worked. Did she call him at night? Did she call him at day and resulted in an eclipse? We shall never know. What we do know, however, is the fact that our God, as always, had managed to heat up stuff substantially, and it resulted in Kunti's pre-marital pregnancy. Karna was born and dumped rather unceremoniously (possibly in a basket, covered with a blanket) in a river. This was possibly Chambal, as per this excellent map. Adhirath, Dhritarashtra's charioteer, was apparently on vacation en route Palace on Chariot Wheels or whatever, found this infant and adopted him (he simply couldn't have survived all the way to Indraprastha on water).

So far, so good. Kunti gets married to Pandu, who was cursed from making any kind of advances to any woman. I've never understood exactly why he got married, that too twice (Madri was from Punjab, and was incredibly attractive): I mean, who wants to add to his own agony? He double-suffered for fifteen years and ultimately succumbed to Madri's charms; he died in the act, and Madri went on a sahamaran out of guilt.

Coming back to Kunti, when Pandu told her that he desperately wanted children, Kunti told him all about Durvasa. I strongly suspect, though, that she was quiet on her solar adventures: My Lord, may I...?

The permission was granted.

So Kunti scored a hat-trick in quick succession: Dharma (Yamraj) came first; he came with his crown and buffalo both having two horns apiece (which possibly emphasised his nature), and Yudhishthir happened; then came Pawan in his whirlwind style and gave her Bheem; and Indra's regal impregnation yielded Arjun. Being a Marwari, she was calculative, and had indeed chosen her partners carefully.

Years later, Kunti had tried hard to keep Karna alive through the wars, asking him to change sides, but the great man refused. She had to be happy with the fact that at most one of Karna and Arjun shall survive the war. This was so unlike Raakhee, who lost, and then regained, both of them simultaneously.

Note: To complicate matters, Dharma/Yamraj was the son of Surya (and to keep true to the human-river relationships, the brother of Yamuna - remember bhaiphnota?). What does that make Karna and Yudhishthir? Go figure. Also, Vidur was Dharma incarnated as a human being, so now shall someone pull up a family tree?

Pathan scores a hundred:

Way before Yusuf and Irfan, Pathans used to exist in the north-west nook of our nation. They also produced a couple of rather interesting siblings, among others, called Shakuni and Gandhari. The latter, on first sight of her blind husband, blindfolded herself for the rest of her life.

She got pregnant at the same time as Kunti (despite the former's visual handicap and the latter aided by Durvasha), but alas! The Marwari had outdone her! Furious, Gandhari asked a maid to hit her pregnant belly with a stick. She had no choice but to oblige, and Gandhari had the strangest of miscarriages, resulting in a gargantuan ball, which broke into a hundred pieces.

The family gynae was called for; he recommended putting them in a hundred pots (okay, dronas) full of ghee. Over the next 100 days (ah, Madhuri!) a hundred sons were born, one a day.

Some sources mention that there were 101 pieces, the last resulting a daughter called Dushshala. But I would like to give our visually impaired couple another fruitful session, thereby having the daughter separately.

Note: In case anyone is interested, the sons were called Duryodhan, Dushassan, Dussaha, Dussala, Jalagandha, Sama, Saha, Vinda, Anuvinda, Durdharsha, Subahu, Dushpradarshan, Durmmarshana, Durmug, Dushkarnna, Karna, Vikarna, Sala, Sathwa, Sulochan, Chitra, Upachitra, Chitraksha, Charuchitra, Sarasan, Durmad, Durvigaha, Vivilsu, Vikadinanda, Urnanabh, Sunabh, Nanda, Upananda, Chitraban, Chitravarma, Suvarma, Durvimoch, Ayobahu, Mahabahu, Chitramga, Chitrakundal, Bhimaveg, Bhimabal, Valaki, Balavardhan, Ugrayudh, Sushen, Kundadhar, Mahodar, Chitrayud, Nishamgi, Pashi, Vrindarak, Dridavarma, Dridakshatr, Somakirti, Anudar, Dridasandha, Jarasandha, Sathyasantha, Sadasuvaku, Ugrashravasu, Ugrasen, Senani, Dushparajay, Aparajit, Kundasayi, Vishalaksha, Duradara, Dridahasta, Suhasta, Vathavega, Suvarcha, Adityaketu, Bahwasi, Nagadata, Ugrasai, Kavachi, Kradana, Kundi, Bhimavikrama, Danurdhar, Virabahu, Alolup, Abhay, Dridakarmavu, Dridaradasraya, Anadrisya, Kundabhedi, Viravi, Chitrakundal, Pramad, Apramadi, Dirkarom, Suviryava, Dirkabahu, Sujata, Kanchanadhwaj, Kundashi and Virajassu.

The following might be noted:

1. Dussala (no. 4) is not the same as the sister.

2. There are some sequences:

    a. The duh-prefixed sequence no. 1: Sons 1 - 4 (Duryodhan, Dushassan, Dussaha, Dussala)

    b. The duh-prefixed sequence no. 2: Sons 12 - 15 (Dushpradarshan, Durmmarshana, Durmug, Dushkarnna)

    c. The chitra-sequence: Sons 21 - 24 (Chitra, Upachitra, Chitraksha, Charuchitra)

3. Yuyutsu isn't included in the list. He was the son of Dhritarashtra and a maid, conceived during Gandhari's pregnancy (you can't blame him for that - the pregnancy was way too long for any man to hold himself back). He was younger to Duryodhan but elder to Dushshashan. He did a Vibhishan just before the war, and was one of the eleven men who managed to survive it (along with the five Pandavs, Krishna, Satyaki, Ashwatthama, Kripa and Kritavarma).
4. Yuyutsu shouldn't be confused with jujutsu, yet another form of Japanese martial art. This is an error Bengali authors often make.

Madri's medical adventures:

This is possibly the most complicated incident of the lot. The kudi from Punjab apparently wanted to have her share of the fun, and Kunti apparently transferred Durvasa's boon to her. I'm not sure how this worked, but that's hardly important.

One would think Madri had grown up among makai di roti, sarson da saag, hockey, bhangra and Yash Raj Films. Apparently not. She had serious ambitions at heart. One, she had a thing for the medical people (mind you, she didn't think very highly of engineers, and hence Vishwakarma didn't get a chance); and two, she had some deep, dark, non-trivial fantasies.

So what does she do? She summons the rather low-profile Ashwinikumar twins. Who are these people? Even after the sea was churned and the ambrosia extracted, the Gods did have medical issues. This is where the twins filled in: they possibly gave vaccination to newborns in heaven, carried out abortions and deliveries, handled malaria and diarrhoea, and healed wounds of various nature.

Impressed by their CV, Madri summoned them. But that's not all - there's something more to it. She called them together. The first recorded threesome in the history of mankind followed, and two equally surprising incidents happened afterwards:

First, Madri, out of guilt or pride or ecstasy or whatever it was, was stupid enough to go on and confess everything to Kunti. Sure enough, Kunti took away the boon from her souten, and that was that.

More significantly, as an outcome of the passionate encounter, she had twins, one to each medical man. Hang on: how did she have twins to two fathers? What am I missing here?


But then, their fathers were doctors: so was this the first recorded case of IVF? I mean, I know this was ages back, but these are celestial doctors that we're discussing, not some random quack. They had possibly discovered the trick, and needed a guineapig for the act. Which is where Madri (did I mention that madre means mother in multiple Iberian languages?) fitted in, with her craving for the dark side and her fetish for healers.

Note: Kunti's sons inherited their fathers' attributes. Karna was blessed with his father's radiant energy as well as the impregnable kavach (armour) and kundal (earring), both supposedly impregnable to weapons. UD inherited the sense of justice, and was visited and blessed by Dharma as a stork in the forest during their exile. Dharma also met him after the final mahaprasthan. Bheem, just like Hanuman, inherited supernatural powers (as seems to be the case with sons of Pawan); Pawan didn't actually meet him, but then, if you consider that he was air, Bheem wasn't really without Pawan. Indra and Arjun met multiple times, with the former ushering random blessings; Indra also took away Karna's kavach and kundal, which turned out to be quite crucial.


But what about Nakul and Sahadev? They, as far as I know, were never visited by their medical fathers, not even when they were wounded during multiple wars or fell during mahaprasthan. They didn't even inherit any medical skills to my knowledge. I mean, they were so commonplace that they took up remarkably plebeian professions while on disguise at Virat's; they were overlooked throughout the book, and their combined sole moment of glory came when Sahadev killed Shakuni. In fact, we learn more about them during the mahaprasthan than in the entire book.


The Mathura cell division folly:
While all this was happening in Hastinapur, an uncalled-for voice announced in Mathura that Kangsa shall be slayed by his sister's eighth son.

What does Kangsa do?

Kill his sister? No, too cruel.
Kill her husband? And widow his sister? Nah, almost equally cruel; and doesn't rule out a plethora of sons being born to his sister.
What then? Imprison his sister? Yes!

So far, so good. And from there everything went downhill. For whatever reason he decided to imprison his brother-in-law as well. And to crown everything, he placed him in the same cell as Devaki. What an idea Sirjee. Wouldn't it have sufficed to place Devaki in solitary confinement? What did he think - she'd make out with the prison guards or something?

Bengali readers might disagree here. A person with a name Deboki can hardly be trusted in such matters.

So Kangsa went through six deliveries, and did a Ganga. He wasn't a river himself, but he definitely had his own ways. And when he went for the seventh, he found that it was a null delivery: Balaram had been teleported somehow to his step-mom Rohini's womb, who was born almost immediately.

Thus motivated, Vasudev and Devaki continued having fun in confinement, and number eight was about to arrive. I'm sure Kangsa was seriously confused at this stage: will the newborn be the seventh son of Devaki's, or the eighth?

Then, stuff happened. Devaki had her eighth. The entire city was darkened for the night. Vasudev took the infant to Gokul and gave him to Nanda and Yashoda. The son turned out to be quite prodigal - he sucked rakshasis dry, danced atop deadly serpents, stole the apparel of bathing women and showed his foster-mother a mouthful of the Universe.

Note: Vasudev and Devaki were released once Krishna slayed Kangsa. Ecstatic, Vasudev promptly got Rohini impregnated again, and Subhadra was born. Subhadra, of rathyatra fame, the future wife of Arjun, the mother of Abhimanyu, and the ancestor of the entire lineage that followed.

The Panchal punch:
Humiliated by Drona and his gang (you know the story, right?), Drupad sought revenge. He performed a yajna/yagga, desiring a militant son. The flame of the yajna rose high, and presto! Out popped Dhrishtadyumna (how I wish I had a son that I could name so!), an adult warrior, to be subsequently registered as Drupad's son at the Census Bureau. He was to be taught by, and years later, to kill Drona (with a token thanks to Yudhishthir), and get killed by Ashwatthama to complete one of the longest two-way tussles ever.

You thought that was it? There was a dark-tinged damsel alongside Dhrishtadyumna in the yajna fire. This was Draupadi, possibly the second-most written-about character from the epic (after Krishna), and the greatest counterexample to the weird concept that Indian men fall for fair complexion only. Not even Helen could cause a war of that degree. No one could. Or shall.

The third sibling, of course, was the reincarnated Amba (scroll up!). Rejected by Vichitravirya (who wasn't up to MFFFs), Shalwa (too egotist) and finally, by Bhishma himself (well, he was a man of words, you see). Shikhandi was born an eunuch (accompanied by the standard divine announcement), took masculinity on loan (????) from a yaksha to save his marriage (and a war, since the bride was a princess), played a part in getting Bhishma killed and got slayed by Ashwatthama. The poor yaksha was back to normal once Shikhandi died.

Note: Draupadi went on to have five sons herself. The brothers had a well-defined arrangement that they would take annual turns with her (anyone violating would be exiled for a year; Arjun got frustrated during Yudhishthir's tenure, interrupted their youknowwhat, got happily exiled and got married thrice within his annual quota; it's surprising that none of the other brothers followed suit). She had Prativindhya, Sutasom, Shrutakirti, Shatanik and Srutasen (I've heard variations of these, and all possible permutations of the last three).

The extras:
A few others deserve a mention here:

Jarasandha:
King Brihadrath of Magadh, sonless for some time, goes to a sage and gets a fruit in return. It was possibly the holy man's way of saying pooto phalo. Anyway, being a man of justice, he divided the fruit into two parts and gave one to each queen.

There is no documentation on the fact whether he went at them together or separately. However, months later, the queens produced half a son each. The son, or the parts, was (or were, I hate such grammar-shattering concepts) discarded. A rakshasi called Jara joined them, and our hero was named Jarasandha (the one joined by Jara).

Bheem undid this coalition several years hence, and there was no Jara to put him back. Rumours are that Fevicol might use the concept in their next campaign.

Note: Jarasandha's son was called Sahadev as well. He succeeded his father to the throne and took side with the Kauravs in The War. I wonder whether there was a Sahadev vs Sahadev, the predecessor to Sarabhai vs Sarabhai.

Shishupal:
Oh, nothing sensational. Just four arms and three legs. Six limbs short of Durga, and an eye more than several insects (and several thousand eyes less than many others). Also brayed, as opposed to wailed when he was born. A quite cool package, especially if you consider the fact that he was accompanied by the routine divine voice.

Abhimanyu:
Not really anything unusual about the birth, but Subhadra's pregnancy was somewhat different. Abhimanyu was prodigal enough to learn about entering Chakravyuha from her mother's womb, but couldn't get to know about the exit as Subby dozed off midway.

***

Disclaimer:
Most of this was written from memory. I seriously wish I had the book with me while writing this. Anyway, there was always the internet to fall back upon in case of the slightest doubt. A special thanks to The Epics section in Diptakirti's blog for making me fall in love with the epics all over again. And then, what would I do without Google and Wikipedia?

Furthermore, this was not written to play with the religious sentiments of people. Believe me, I love and respect Mahabharat as much as you do, and have read it as many times as almost anyone I know.