I was twelve when I first heard the name Duryodhana whispered with both reverence and unease in the bazaar near the river.
It was not spoken the way one might speak of a god or a sage. It was not even the way one speaks of a distant prince. It was the way a man mutters about a coming storm while sharpening a sickle — half fear, half respect, and a quiet, unspoken readiness. A boy named Loka, three years older than me and twice my height, boasted that his uncle had once polished the royal chariot when the Kauravas passed through Mathura. "I saw him," Loka claimed, eyes alight. "The eldest Kaurava. Broad as a bull. The dust parted for him."
I did not speak, but I listened.
At that age, I had begun listening to the world as if it were a vast murmuring machine — gears of fate turning somewhere deep underfoot, too low for most to hear. I caught words others didn't mean to say, truths buried under gossip. I stored them. I weighed them. Not because I was curious about power, but because power was slowly circling the edges of my village like a wolf brushing the outer ring of a firelit camp.
We were too far from Hastinapur to matter, and yet I knew — somehow — that we were not far enough to be forgotten.
That evening, I sat on the edge of the old watchtower ruins, legs dangling over the crumbled wall, and watched the fields breathe smoke into the dusk. The dry season had arrived early. Somewhere behind me, goats bleated. In front, the river shone like a molten thread. I held a pebble in my hand and turned it over slowly, the rhythm of my thumb keeping time with a song my mother used to hum when she churned curd.
In that moment, I thought of him — not Loka, not the merchant who'd spread the rumor, but Duryodhana. A name from the Mahabharata, yes, but not yet the villain of epics. Just a boy, not much older than me, training in a palace surrounded by cousins and courtiers.
I imagined him staring at a spear's tip until it gleamed with his reflection.
I imagined what it was to grow up where the world was handed to you in golden dishes, and yet you sensed that love was portioned out in tighter measures.
I wondered if he ever felt the burden of being seen before he was known.
The world had already begun to twist his name into prophecy, but I asked myself: what if he had not asked for it?
At night, I dreamed of a room I had never seen — polished stone, pillars wide enough to swallow my father's hut, voices echoing through corridors like temple bells. I saw a boy not unlike me, in form if not in fortune, walking alone past statues of forgotten kings. His steps were sharp, but his shadow moved slower than his body, lagging behind, as if reluctant to follow.
He turned once and looked straight at me.
In the dream, I did not flinch.
I simply nodded.
I woke with sweat on my brow and silence pressing against my ears. The stars had faded into a milky sky. Kittu snored softly beside me, curled like a pup. A single fly buzzed near the earthen wall. The world felt unchanged, and yet inside, something shifted.
The dream should have frightened me. I should have awoken disturbed by the prince's gaze.
But I didn't.
Instead, I felt a strange kinship.
Duryodhana had grown up surrounded by names that meant something: Bhishma, Drona, Vidura, Karna, Arjuna. Each name a pillar, each relationship a thread woven by fate and myth. But I, too, lived among echoes — only mine were quieter, carried by dust and wind instead of conch shells and scrolls.
What was a low-born child if not a shadow, unnoticed until the sun rose at just the right angle?
The next day, I walked farther than usual into the wooded paths beyond our grazing fields. I took with me a half-eaten roti, a reed flute my uncle had carved, and silence.
I found a clearing where the earth curved inward like a shallow bowl, ringed by sal trees. I sat at its center, closed my eyes, and imagined the sound of drums — not of war, but of training.
Arjuna, Karna, Duryodhana — boys shaped by drills and duty, archery contests and watchful eyes.
I had none of that. No teacher. No arena. No bow.
But I had time.
And I had memory.
From some corner of my past life, muscle memory stirred. I recalled a kata, a pattern of martial motion I had once seen on a screen or in a demonstration.
I mimicked it. Slowly.
Feet grounded. Arms slicing air.
Then again. Again. Again.
Hours passed. The sun moved overhead like a curious witness. Sweat soaked my back. My legs trembled.
I made no lie that day. Not one.
But I carved a truth, slowly, into the soil with my feet: I will not be helpless when the tide rises.
It was not ambition. It was preparation.
That night, I heard my father speak of a passing caravan robbed near the hill road — riders cloaked in royal blue, speaking a dialect that matched none of our local tongues.
"City men," he said, his voice edged with unease. "Or perhaps court men."
The village gathered close after sundown. Even those who mocked city talk kept their doors shut. Something had shifted. The kingdom was moving.
I stood near the temple's outer gate and looked at the flame flickering on the shrine's lip.
And I felt it.
The presence of something larger than us.
A war not yet begun but already breathing.
Duryodhana — the name again danced at the edge of every adult conversation, even when they spoke of kings they had never seen.
A merchant from Indraprastha passed through and said the palace kitchens now served double grain in honor of an upcoming celebration. "The prince's festival," he whispered. "The Kaurava heir comes of age."
Twelve.
That was his age now.
The same as mine.
Our lives could not be more different, yet the threads of fate — invisible but taut — were being pulled in opposite directions toward some same future.
I wondered if he ever paused to breathe. If he ever listened to silence, or if his days were filled with praise, training, and suspicion.
If I had been born in that palace, would I have become him?
If he had been born in my hut, would he now be the boy who walks into the woods with only dreams and doubt for company?
The question dug into me deeper than I expected.
Because it hinted at something dangerous: that virtue and vice might not be in the soul, but in the soil from which it is grown.
I thought of the lie I had once made true: He has the memory of ten sages.
A gift, yes. But was it a shield? Or a sword?
I remembered how easily Loka's uncle spoke of cruelty masked as strength. "Duryodhana does not forgive slights," he said. "Even if it comes from a child's laugh or a servant's step."
Is that power? To crush insult with certainty?
I had never craved control. But I had hungered for choice.
And here, for the first time, I understood: not all who become villains are born cruel. Some are simply born where power is taught before empathy.
The next week, a new boy entered our village school. Son of a minor scribe, his family had fled the northern banks after a fire gutted their ancestral home.
He spoke clipped Sanskrit, read fast, but kept to himself.
One afternoon, he muttered to no one in particular, "Kaurava camps move near the eastern forests."
I perked up.
He noticed.
"You listen too much for a potter's son," he said, smirking.
"And you speak too loosely for a scribe's," I replied.
He grinned. "Fair."
We became… not friends, but something adjacent. He called himself Samaya. I never asked if that was his real name.
He spoke of things others didn't: factions forming in court, the division between the royal cousins growing sharper. He said Duryodhana was gathering not just arms, but ideas — whispers of strategy, bribes of land, pledges from allies who valued order over fairness.
I asked if he feared war.
"No," he said. "I fear stories."
I didn't understand.
He explained: "Once a tale is told about a man, it becomes harder for him to untell it. They say Duryodhana is proud. So even if he wishes peace, he must act proud. Because otherwise, he looks weak. And that's how myths bind us."
I was quiet for a long time.
Then I asked, "So what story do people tell of me?"
He shrugged. "Some say you're lucky. Others say you're odd. But me — I think you're listening for your part in a tale not yet told."
That night, I walked to the river alone. The moon was low. Its light spilled like milk across the water. I sat on a flat stone and let my thoughts stretch beyond the horizon.
Duryodhana.
Not my enemy.
Not my friend.
But perhaps, my mirror.
We were both shaped by truths not of our choosing.
He stood in the center of power, drowning in attention.
I stood at the edge of obscurity, starved for guidance.
Yet both of us — I felt it — were being pulled toward the same storm.
And when it came, it would not ask our names.
It would only ask: What have you made true?
And so, with the wind brushing the reeds, I whispered a single vow under my breath, careful not to trigger the power.
Not a lie. Not yet.
Just a seed of intent.
"When the shadow comes, I will not be blind."