Ashish Joshi
WHILE Damayanti slowly recuperated from her travails in the kingdom of Chedi, Nala wandered through the forest, hopeless and despairing. One day he saw a huge forest fire burning and went to investigate. He heard a voice coming from the smoke and flames, calling out for help. He saw a small snake trapped in the glowing flames, and pulled it out to safety. But the snake turned on him, and bit him on the thumb. He was instantly turned into a pock-marked, lame hunchback. ‘Is this how you thank me?’, he wailed, but the snake told him not to fear and assured him he would recover his own handsome form and his wife. The snake asked him to visit Ayodhya and ask Rituparna, the king, to take him on as his charioteer. The king will teach you skill at dice and you will get back everything you lost, the snake said.
Nala did as the serpent advised and was soon teaching King Rituparna the skills of horsemanship. Now, Damayanti’s father had sent four people to search for his missing daughter. In due course they arrived at Chedi and recognized Damayanti. She was afraid that her father would punish Nala if he found him again, so she was living incognito in the palace. But now with the four messengers greeting her, she was out in the open. The delighted queen mother sent her back to her father’s kingdom. She implored her father to send out messengers to search for her missing husband. The messengers were to ask for a gambler who had abandoned his wife in the forest.
The messengers returned some time later saying they had found no one who had done such a thing. But they reported that in the court of King Rituparna, there was a deformed charioteer called Vahuka who had reacted strangely at the question, weeping and staggering out of the room. Damayanti despaired of finding her husband but since the charioteer knew something, he must be summoned. She told her father that as Nala was most probably dead, she must hold another svamyamvara. Her father Bhima announced another svamyamvara for his daughter. King Rituparna also decided to seek her hand himself.
With a sinking heart, Vahuka, who was still Nala, prepared Rituparna’s chariot for the journey to Vidharbha. What had driven his beloved Damayanti to this? Was it an act of despair? Would she ever know that one so ugly and misshapen was actually her own dearly-loved husband?
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