Shantanu Meets a Girl
It was just your average day as a king. I'd do my ruling business, order some servants around, eat like a king, and then go down to the river for my daily walk. However, this specific day, I met a girl. She was beautiful, and was washing her clothes in the river that I walk by. I had to speak to her.
"Come here often?" I say, immediately regretting my stupid pickup line.
"Not really," she says. "I just moved here."
"Well, why don't I give you the Hastinapura welcome? Let me invite you over for dinner."
And she came to dinner. Over the next few weeks, she came and visited more and more often. Dinners and long walks by the river were our favorite things to do. Was I falling in love? Was this the woman that would become my queen? It was a scary feeling knowing that this may be the woman I spend the rest of my life with, but I was ready to take the plunge. I was falling in love with this woman and I wanted nothing more than to be with her. So when the day came, I took her back down to the river, got down on one knee, and proposed to her. When she accepted, I couldn't have been happier. This king was finally going to have his queen and my life would finally have purpose. I was going to have a family and a life worth living.
However, there was a catch.
Not a huge catch, she just told me that I was never allowed to question any of her actions. Seems normal...ish. She'd wear a weird shirt, and I wouldn't comment. She'd eat dessert before dinner, nothing too out of the ordinary. All seemed to be going well and it was not too hard on me for the first few years. But then it escalated, and boy it escalated quickly. When we got pregnant for the first time and she had the baby, she immediately took him to the river. The whole thing seemed odd, but she told me to not question her, so I didn't ask why, but when she came back without the baby, I was suspicious.
"I drowned the baby," she said.
I couldn't believe my ears. Drowned the baby?! Our baby?! I know I'm not supposed to ask, but how could she. Over the course of the next few years, she drowned the next six babies we had. At the eighth baby, I said enough was enough and she had to tell me why she was doing such an awful thing.
"I told you not to ask," she said "but I guess you're gonna hear it."
She proceeded to tell me that she, my WIFE, was the incarnation of the river Ganga and our sons that she drowned were the Vasus, who were reincarnated as babies to be punished for stealing Vashishtha's cow. After telling me this, she took the last baby and just disappeared. Gone. Didn't even say goodbye. Women, am I right?
Mahabharata by Narayan
Author's Note: I wrote this about Shantanu and his relationship with Ganga and how she drowns their children in the river when they have the babies. I told it through the perspective of the king and how he would react and his thoughts about the crazy situation that he got himself into. This story doesn't quite have the modern spin I put on my high-school story about Ravana, but I felt like it couldn't really be modernized without being too morbid. I just modernized the language a little and made Shantanu a lovestruck king who was on the search for a queen to make his life worth living. I really enjoyed this story as the start to the Mahabharata. It was a really cool twist to have King Shantanu's wife be the incarnate form of the actual river. I thought it would be a fun one to write about too and put my own spin on it. The morbidity of the actual story shocked me at first. I was shocked that this woman would drown her own children in the river. But once it was revealed that the children were actually gods and the woman was the river Ganga, it made it easier to read, because she wasn't reeeeeaally killing babies, merely punishing the other gods for stealing the cow in Heaven.
"Come here often?" I say, immediately regretting my stupid pickup line.
"Not really," she says. "I just moved here."
"Well, why don't I give you the Hastinapura welcome? Let me invite you over for dinner."
And she came to dinner. Over the next few weeks, she came and visited more and more often. Dinners and long walks by the river were our favorite things to do. Was I falling in love? Was this the woman that would become my queen? It was a scary feeling knowing that this may be the woman I spend the rest of my life with, but I was ready to take the plunge. I was falling in love with this woman and I wanted nothing more than to be with her. So when the day came, I took her back down to the river, got down on one knee, and proposed to her. When she accepted, I couldn't have been happier. This king was finally going to have his queen and my life would finally have purpose. I was going to have a family and a life worth living.
However, there was a catch.
Not a huge catch, she just told me that I was never allowed to question any of her actions. Seems normal...ish. She'd wear a weird shirt, and I wouldn't comment. She'd eat dessert before dinner, nothing too out of the ordinary. All seemed to be going well and it was not too hard on me for the first few years. But then it escalated, and boy it escalated quickly. When we got pregnant for the first time and she had the baby, she immediately took him to the river. The whole thing seemed odd, but she told me to not question her, so I didn't ask why, but when she came back without the baby, I was suspicious.
"I drowned the baby," she said.
I couldn't believe my ears. Drowned the baby?! Our baby?! I know I'm not supposed to ask, but how could she. Over the course of the next few years, she drowned the next six babies we had. At the eighth baby, I said enough was enough and she had to tell me why she was doing such an awful thing.
"I told you not to ask," she said "but I guess you're gonna hear it."
She proceeded to tell me that she, my WIFE, was the incarnation of the river Ganga and our sons that she drowned were the Vasus, who were reincarnated as babies to be punished for stealing Vashishtha's cow. After telling me this, she took the last baby and just disappeared. Gone. Didn't even say goodbye. Women, am I right?
Mahabharata by Narayan
Author's Note: I wrote this about Shantanu and his relationship with Ganga and how she drowns their children in the river when they have the babies. I told it through the perspective of the king and how he would react and his thoughts about the crazy situation that he got himself into. This story doesn't quite have the modern spin I put on my high-school story about Ravana, but I felt like it couldn't really be modernized without being too morbid. I just modernized the language a little and made Shantanu a lovestruck king who was on the search for a queen to make his life worth living. I really enjoyed this story as the start to the Mahabharata. It was a really cool twist to have King Shantanu's wife be the incarnate form of the actual river. I thought it would be a fun one to write about too and put my own spin on it. The morbidity of the actual story shocked me at first. I was shocked that this woman would drown her own children in the river. But once it was revealed that the children were actually gods and the woman was the river Ganga, it made it easier to read, because she wasn't reeeeeaally killing babies, merely punishing the other gods for stealing the cow in Heaven.
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| Ganga drowns her son (Blogspot) |
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