Chapter 11: FIRST STEP TOWARDS BEING A WARRIOR
KUNTI'S POV
When I heard aadhya is not going to guru drona's ashram and instead she is going to kanyashala I told my putra's "go be with aadhya and try to console her and change her mood and told them, I will be there in a while", saying this I took my leave to sabha kaksh to talk to king dritarasht, even though I didn't want to face him after what happened but as a mother I will make my aadhya's and my arya's wish come
true.
"King dritarasht I need to talk to you" saying this I entered sabha kaksh and only tatshree, vidur, king dritarasht and kripa charya were present, "pranam tatshree, I just came here to tell you guys that please let aadhya go to guru drona's ashram instead of kanyashala as she is a very talented in weaponry, kingdom welfare and has great knowledge about dharma, she has learnt it all with her bharatashree's during our vanvaas, and it was her dream to be besides her bharatashree's and fight alongside with them", I looked at tatshree and said "it was pandu's wish to make aadhya a warrior and the night before his death he told me how aadhya is learning everything quickly and how she was a excellent student and that when the time has come for us to go to hastinapur he himself will teach her everything, but since he is not with us anymore I beg you to send her with my putras to guru drona and guru drona has given aadhya blessings and accepted her his student himself, if you are still not convince treat this as my arya's last wish" I finished joining my hands.
"Putri please don't join your hands I myself was requesting dritarasht to let aadhya go to drona's ashram as I know the whole story and I know the potential aadhya holds and now since you told us to treat this as pandu's last wish i'm sure dritarasht won't say no, right dritarasht?", tatshree said leaving no choice but for him to say yes, I thanked them and was about to take a leave when tatshree said "I want to myself give this good news to aadhya", I nodded and tatshree and vidur tagged along to see her reaction.
YUDHISHTHIR'S POV
We went to aadhya's room as we knew she would be sad about not going to guru drona's ashram, not learning weaponry, kingdom welfare and dharma with us and not being with us for twelve years, even us thinking of living without aadhya for twelve years is impossible to imagine because she is the only one who can make us smile in any situation and her care, love and mischievousness we can't think our any day without them.
We entered her room to see her sad thinking about not going and I called her, turning around she came running into my arms and said "why can't I go with you bhagyashree's, pitashree told me I will learn everything with you guys and he was even proud of me you know that right and I used to keep up with you guys", she said with the hope of acknowledgement in her eyes.
I patted her head and said "you were and you are the best, even better than us little warrior, pitashree was very proud of you, you were his favorite student after all, you are worthy of going with us, you are no less than us but tatshree doesn't know that yet let mata come me and anuj's have decide to go talk to him don't worry", I kissed her forehead and after hearing what I said, she called my anuj and hugged us all saying "you all are the best bharatashree's in the world" and kissed our cheeks and added "I love you all so much". A voice came from behind saying "there is no need to go talk putra". BISHMA'S POV
We three entered the room seeing that yudhishthir said that they all are going to talk to dritarasht about aadhya and listening to that how aadhya hugged them and said they are the best and how she loves them very much, but I interrupted saying there is no need to go.
Putri aadhya I guess you should pack your things as you are going stand besides your bharatashrees as you wanted to and i'm sure you are going to make everyone of us proud by becoming a fine warrior, when aadhya heard this she ran to me saying "is this true pitamah am I really going, am I really going to be staying with my bharatashrees and be able to make my pitashree and mata proud!!??", the excitement in her voice and the shine in her eyes said it all that how happy she is and how much she wanted to go, "I nodded my head saying it's all thanks to your mata go and thank her too.
AADHYA'S POV
I can't believe i'm really going, what pitamah said was music to my ears, now I can stand besides them and fight, now I can prove myself and prove pitashrees trust on me and prove everyone that a girl can be a warrior and protect her loved ones, I rushed to him and asked him if i'm really going he nodded and said it's thanks to mata.
I went towards mata and said "mata thank you so much, you are the best, and i'm very grateful to you and I will not make you have any change to be sad or disappointed about this decision and make you proud of me", I said hugging her and showering her with kisses, she kissed my forehead and said "now go back your stuff" I nodded and went to pitamah and called him like I was going to tell him a secret he came near and I kissed his cheek as well and said thank you and did the same thing to kakashree vidur making them chuckle and I went away happily to pack my stuff and told bharatshree's proudly "no one is going to save you from me now hehe, and I will be so strong that I won't run away from you bharta bheem after I steal ladoos from you showing my tongue" and bharata bheem started chasing me and we ran around the whole room causing my room to be filled with laughter and joy.
NEXT MORNING
NO ONE'S POV
All the rituals were done and pandavas were saying goodbye to kunti, but bheem being bheem told mata to give all his anuj dahi shakkar first so he can eat all the remaining but aadhya said she want her extra share too and they had a little fight even now!, kunti told bheem and arjun to take care of nakul, sahadev and aadhya to which aadhya replied "mata don't worry I assure you I will take care of them because they can't take care of themselves", after saying goodbye to kunti aadhya rushed to bhishma and said "i'm going to make you proud of me just wait for me pitamah and thank you for believing in me" and took his blessing and went to vidur, "kakashree thank you for believing me, I will come back and show everyone how strong i'm going to be" and took vidur's blessing and went down together with yudhishthir who was taking dhritarasht blessings and made a face to duryodhan on the way. Before leaving arjun and aadhya gave one last look to kunti and left.
GURU DRONA'S ASHRAM
Everyone reached and was admiring the place but duryodhan and dushasan seeing a tent made for them went inside, when they entered they saw someone and soon came to know it's ashwathama drona's child and become friends with him, but their tent was burnt by drona saying "you can't have facilities till you are my student and everyone will be treated equally". They were told to rest for the day and everyone slept at night, aadhya slept hugging yudhishthir, sahadev slept hugging arjun and nakul slept hugging bheem.
Next morning it was to be decided what weapons everyone was going to use and how much knowledge everyone is going to gain. (just mentioning pandavas weapons). Yudhishthir had spear, bheem had mace, arjun had bow, nakul had sword, sahadev had axe and aadhya had a sword as well (i'm going to make her a best sword fighter here no offense to anyone they were all great fighters and had great skills and i'm not looking down on anyone, it's just for the story).
When aadhya first time took the sword in her hands she was laughed at and dushasana mockingly said "you, a girl is going to use a sword, don't even think of taking it in your hands it will be an insult to it and everyone except pandavas laughed at her but everyone was shocked about with how much perfection she sliced the small dummy, impressed with her guru drona said "never underestimate your enemies just because of their figure, age or gender" glancing at aadhya, he came near her and said "you did great putri and i'm proud of you, you already started proving everyone wrong and proving my decisions to make you my student right" and left to look at other students work, making duryodhan, dushasan and ashwathama jealous.
Due to arjun's and aadhya's great skills in their weapons drona decided to give them more time to practice and learn more making other pandavas proud and others die in jealousy especially duryodhan, dushasan and ashwathama and they started looking for chances to take them down in any way possible.
AADHYA'S POV
Me and bharata arjun were practicing but it was evening causing us to not see our targets properly and gurudev said "why did you both stop?", to which we both replied "it's evening and it's hard to see our targets gurudev", to which gurudev replied "so your eyes are your limits, a warrior should always have the knowledge about their limits", and bharata arjun said "it's not our eyes gurudev it's darkness, that is our limit", and the words that gurudev said changed our whole meaning of the word limit to us "if a person can't break the stone what is his limit, his hand or the stone?", making me think what he said and how understood that our hands are the limit because we can make our hands stronger but the stone's power remain the same and the key towards overcoming our limitations is to overcome our every little difficulty that limits us. (this is what I understood from hearing him say that).
After sometime bharata bheem and bharata duryodhan started fighting and bharata duryodhan pushed bharata bheem in the daldal, soon me and my bharatashree's rushed to help, jesth bharata told him not to move as he will go inside it more and gurudev came to us and looked at me and bharata arjun and said "thinking of solutions in tough situations is a part of teaching and that's what a warrior should learn", hearing him me and bharta arjun nodded at each other as we thought of something and I rushed to take my sword and then went near a tree to strike a branch and closed my eyes and feel all the things near me and striked the branch I felt was right and bharata arjun hit it with his arrow towards bharata bheem and bharata bheem caught it and we pulled him up and that's when we took over our first limitations which was the darkness.
Our days were going happily learning more about weaponry, kingdom welfare and dharma, we pandavas still used to make time for each other and spent time with each other playing or even helping each other when had doubts and just spend time enjoying each others company or teasing bharata bheem and all of would run away from him.
One day we came to know about eklavya, bharata arjun and I were devastated about knowing how a student can learn so much by just listening to everything gurudev says and we started practicing harder forgetting that we don't learn to be first but to take in the knowledge given by our guru for our own satisfaction, soon gurudev came to know why we are practicing this hard and thought it was his fault so he went to eklavya and asked for his thumb making me and bharata arjun shock, we both weren't able to forget the incident.
Bharata duryodhan came towards me and bharata arjun saying he has brought us a gift and it will make us very happy, as soon as we opened it we saw eklavya's thumb and bharata duryodhan started saying "it's your fault that gurudev did this, he was trying to make arjun the best that's why he did it and told arjun to leave his weapon because if he were in his place he would have done that and told me how I'm his second favorite so now he is going to ask someone to cut his palm as guru dakshina so I can remain best in sword fighting and his second best" making bharata arjun and me doubt ourselves we went to ask gurudev questions.
Gurudev told us the reasons why he did what he did, but me and bharata arjun asked him how we are going to remove the tag from his head about this, he kept his hands on our shoulders and said "just become "utama" and you will be greater warriors then your pitamah too, and the tag will be removed", which made us realize that being first doesn't matter what matters is we take the knowledge we learn for our own satisfaction without any race or desire to be first.
Gurudev was doing jal-abhishek to promise that he won't treat his students differently and suddenly me and bharata arjun heard screams, causing us to go where everyone was and seeing a crocodile attack gurudev me and bharata arjun shared a look and took the actions, we both jumped in water wasting no time for others to take action and swim towards gurudev and bharata arjun took the above part of the crocodiles mouth and I took the lower part and separated gurudev's body from his mouth and started hitting the crocodile so he goes away and doesn't attack anymore but as soon as bharata arjun kept the wood in the crocodile's mouth he disappeared making everyone shocked about what happened and gurudev, ashwathama, bharata arjun and I came out of the water and gurudev announced "arjun and aadhya are my best students because of the dedication they have towards me" and taught us how dedication towards guru is the key to gain more knowledge then their guru it self and told duryodhan if he wants to leave he can but if he leaves he will go with a very little knowledge and if he stays he might start having the dedication and the right knowledge.
After the incident gurudev called bharata arjun and me towards him and said how we should start working on our duo as well because he has seen how we both know each other's thoughts just by sharing one look and told us how we can be the unbreakable duo ever known because having a partner first thing one needs is understanding with other and we already have that, so we started practicing duo and fighting against each other too just for practice and to our surprise we really became a good duo I still won't use the word best as we haven't fought wars yet and it didn't even take us time to be duo partners it was like we already were one, after completing the duo practice with bharata arjun I asked gurudev about if I could practice it with my other bharatashree's as I would never know who I would have to back up or who would I be helping to which gurudev replied "I'm very proud of you aadhya I like how you think of your every brother equally, I won't say no to you as I know you love and understand your all bharatashree's but just want to warn you that you won't have the same results as you had with arjun and i'm sure you would know the reason too", I nodded and said "yes gurudev I myself know that my understanding with bharata arjun is more than any other bharatashree's but that doesn't mean I love my any other bharatashree's less and the main reason I started learning weaponry was because I wanted to be all my bharatashree's shield emotionally and a shield that can fight with them", gurudev just smiled proudly and gave me blessings.
I started practicing duo with all my lovely bharatashrees which even helped me bond with them more and I was toe to toe with them but from us six me and bharata arjun made the best duo which didn't have a weak point and that's how our everyday went in ashram.
A person name karna came to gain knowledge but gurudev declined his request because "suth" putras or any one who is not kshatriya or brahmin can't have the knowledge of weaponry and sent him away, making me think why is status more important than knowledge and how knowledge should be available to everyone.
And days became years soon we would complete our education and would return home, making our mata, pitamah and kakashree proud. Pitashree I hope you are watching us from above and I hope me and my bharatashree's have made you proud. I said looking towards the sky with a smile.
SOMEWHERE ELSE
A person away from everyone, wanting to prove himself worthy even if he is a normal person and show and prove the world that knowledge is for everyone started learning under the great parshuram lying about his identity about being a brahmin to prove himself. Forgetting one thing that how lying is the second way of showing their weakness and how this might cause a great loss in the future.☐☐☐☐☐☐☐☐☐☐☐☐☐☐