Free Mahabharata: A Modern Retelling by Carole Satyamurti Page B

kingdom, and beyond.
    There was no finer weapons school than his,
    and kshatriya boys traveled from near and far
    to learn from him. There was a boy called Karna,
    son of a driver, whom other boys despised
    but feared as well. He was tall, aquiline,
    and was distinguished by his gold cuirass
    and golden earrings—features he was born with.
    Wary of rebuff, he made no friends;
    only Duryodhana was kind to him.
    He was an archer of exceptional skill.
    Seeing that Arjuna was the star pupil,
    Karna sought to rival him in all things
    and was painfully jealous of his prowess.
    Arjuna scorned him, treating him with contempt.
    Gathering his nerve, he went to Drona.
    “Master, please teach me the Brahma weapon.”
    “That ultimate weapon can only be learned,”
    said Drona, “by a brahmin of stringent vows,
    or a kshatriya who has undertaken
    great austerities; no one else at all.”
    Karna saw that Drona would never teach
    the higher mysteries of a warrior’s skill
    to one who was of lowly origin.
    Angry and sad, he gathered his possessions
    determined to seek out another teacher,
    vowing that, one day, he would be back;
    he would prove himself greater than Arjuna!
    He left the city, passing through the gate
    unremarked, and was soon forgotten.

    One night, as he was walking in his garden,
    Drona was startled by a rustling sound—
    a boy leapt from the bushes and threw himself
    at the guru’s feet. He turned his dark face
    upward in adoration, and begged Drona
    to accept him as one of his disciples.
    He was a nishada, a forest tribal,
    called Ekalavya, younger than the princes,
    lithe, with a strange accent.
    Drona sighed,
    “I have to disappoint you—I only teach
    youths who come from highborn families.
    You’re a nishada. It just wouldn’t do.”
    Ekalavya bowed his head and, springing up,
    was gone.
    He ran, sure-footed, through the forest.
    In a moonlit clearing at its heart,
    lush with vigorous vines, there was a pool
    lovely with lotuses. The boy scooped up
    clay from the water’s edge and carefully
    modeled a life-size figure of his master.
    It took him many days and nights of work,
    work informed by pure-hearted commitment.
    When the likeness was complete, Ekalavya
    slept. Then he rose, gathered perfumed flowers
    and made a garland for his master’s neck.
    “Bless me, Guruji.” And having touched
    earth with his brow, he began to practice
    with faith, devotion, and pure discipline.
    Time passed.
    One sparkling afternoon in winter,
    the Pandavas rode out into the forest
    to hunt wild boar. Their prized dog was with them
    snuffling, bounding off ahead of them.
    Suddenly they heard it growl, and then
    a frenzy of barks, making birds fly upward
    in alarm. Then stifled whines. The hound
    slunk from the bushes, bleeding and subdued,
    and the princes found it had been silenced
    by seven evenly spaced arrows clamping
    its muzzle shut. They were amazed—surely,
    at the first wound, the dog would have bolted.
    These arrows must have flown from the bowstring
    in unimaginably quick succession.
    And so precisely! Even Arjuna
    could never have accomplished such a feat.
    Following the track the dog had taken
    they came upon a clearing in the wood
    where a dark-skinned youth, his crude bow raised,
    was shooting a cascade of arrows, calmly,
    gracefully, and with such dazzling skill
    the brothers were astounded.
    “Who are you?
    And where could you have learned to shoot like that?”
    The youth replied, “My name is Ekalavya,
    my father is the chief of the nishadas,
    and I owe my skill to the great Drona,
    my master.”
    Soberly, the brothers rode
    back to the city. Pale with jealousy,
    Arjuna took Drona to one side.
    “Did you not promise me, not long ago,
    that I would be the world’s greatest archer?
    How, then, can you be teaching, secretly,
    that lowborn boy—an archer so accomplished
    he makes me look like a mere beginner!”
    Drona was mystified, then called to mind
    the forest boy he had refused to teach.
    With