Pregnant King Read online

  Though frightened, Somvat was fascinated by the way the Yaksha kept changing voices, sounding sometimes like himself and sometimes like, in all likelihood, Shikhandi.

  The Yaksha continued, ‘On his wedding night, Shikhandi’s wife noticed that her husband’s body was no different from hers.’ The Yaksha laughed, ‘Listen to this: Drupada had convinced young Shikhandi that his manhood would emerge on his wedding night in the presence of his wife. Can you believe such a thing? Shikhandi managed to convince his bride of this too. Innocent little thing! So the two spent all night waiting for the manhood to emerge and as you can guess,’ the Yaksha paused for effect, ‘nothing emerged. Both went to their respective fathers. Shikhandi’s father said the wife was useless; they should look for another one. The bride’s father, the king of Dasharni, sent a courtesan to Drupada with a warning that if Shikhandi failed to prove his manliness to her satisfaction, the Kshatriyas of Dasharni would release their fire-arrows and burn Panchala to the ground.’

  As the Yaksha spoke, Somvat forgot all about the situation he was in. The fetters. The dungeons. The fear of losing his head. He was completely enchanted by the story. ‘What happened then?’

  ‘Shikhandi ran out of Panchala, suddenly confronted by the truth of his body. He tried to drown himself in the river. I saved him. Or should I say her? I asked him, “What do you think you are, a man or woman?” “I am not sure,” he said in a voice that was definitely not a man’s. “My father insists I am a man. So does my mother. But my body is just like my wife’s,” so saying he untied his dhoti and lowered his uttarya. I tell you, it was the most perfect woman’s body I had seen in a long time, marred by rough muscular arms. Lotus-bud breasts. Smooth round hips. I know human women. I have been with lots of them. Manava women invoke Yaksha men using magical formulae because we provide them with the greatest satisfaction; Yaskshas are hung like donkeys, you see, thick and black and long. Just like you.’

  Suddenly aware of the Yaksha’s grip on his manhood, Somvat tried to pull away. The Yaksha’s grip tightened. ‘Where do you wish to go? Where can you go?’ said the Yaksha glancing at the chains round the boy’s ankles and wrists. ‘Now let me finish this story. I felt sorry for Shikhandi. I picked her up and put her on my lap and wiped her tears and comforted her. She was a girl. A little girl raised as a boy. Confused. Embarrased by the princess of Dasharni. Afraid of being the cause of Panchala’s destruction.’ The Yaksha paused. Somvat noticed that the Yaksha had compassionate eyes. ‘I felt sorry for him. I told him that I would grant him my masculinity and take on his femininity. Then he could be a man with the courtesan sent by his father-in-law. After that he could be a man with his wife. And then with as many women as he wished. But only until the following new-moon night. On that day he would have to return my manhood to me. I told him a fortnight was enough for him to teach a lesson to all those women who want him to be a man,’ Sthunakarna chuckled.

  ‘What do you mean teach the women a lesson?’ asked Somvat.

  With a conspiratorial look, the Yaksha said, ‘It’s a Yaksha’s secret that few humans know. Women who know it never share it with others out of shame and spite. A Yaksha man can go to a Manava woman only if she calls him, you see. But he can go to her only once, never again. If a woman seeks a Yaksha in lust, she is left with a terrible insatiable itch that no one can cure. If a woman seeks a Yaksha in love, there is no itch; instead she ends up bearing a child even if she is an old hag.’

  ‘Is that true?’

  ‘As I told you, the laws of nature that apply to Manavas do not apply to Yakshas. If Shikhandi’s wife came to him in love she would become the mother of his child. If she came to him in lust she would suffer a terrible itch forever. A deserving punishment I must say,’ Sthunakarna bared his teeth in glee.

  ‘How many women have you given the itch and to how many have you given a child?’ asked Somvat.

  ‘Ten itches but no children. Look at me, who will fall in love with a Yaksha. They want us only for one thing.’ Sthunakarna’s thoughts went back to the women who had compelled him to come to them with the magical formula: a farmer’s frustrated widow, a fisherman’s demanding wife, a queen of an impotent king, a merchant’s impatient daughter, an old doctor’s young wife…a long list, extending back to the days of Ila. Three hundred and forty years earlier. That’s how old he was.

  The itch that followed intercourse with a Yaksha was Kubera’s way of getting back at Manava women who used Yakshas for pleasure and then discarded them without a thought. It was said the king of Yakshas still nursed a broken heart. From the shadows he would watch all the women who had ever summoned Yakshas thrash about in bed trying in vain to get satisfaction from other men, or from other substitutes: fingers, vegetables, false manhoods fashioned out of wood and clay, even animals. ‘Who told them to call a Yaksha?’ Kubera would say gleefully. Sthunakarna found his king’s delight pathetic and perverse. But he never said a word. Kubera did not like being judged.

  Sthunakarna turned his attention back to Somvat. Somvat was looking at his groin, ‘So where is it? Your manhood that Shikhandi was to return in fifteen days?’

  Sthunakarna started to bawl. ‘What was supposed to come back in a fortnight has not come back even after thirty years and may never come back!’ He started hitting his head against the wall. Then suddenly he stopped, sat up, turned to Somvat, skewed his eyes and said, ‘Unless you help.’

  ‘Me?’ Somvat’s fear returned.

  ‘Yes. Shikhandi left with my manhood clinging to his body and I waited for the new moon night for him to return. The moon waned, then waxed, then waned again. He did not come. So I went to Panchala. Ordered him to return what was rightfully mine. Threatened him with dire consequences if he refused. “My wife refuses to come to me,’ he said, “and said what she saw on the wedding night is her only truth. That I will always be a woman to her. Husband but not man. Let me be a man till the night she calls me to her bed. I beg you.” Fool that I am, I agreed. I thought his wife would change her mind in a few days. But she refused to do so. The stubborn bitch. Days turned into weeks, weeks to months, months to years. Thirty years. Draupadi was born, the Kuru lands divided, Indra-prastha rose and was gambled away. The Pandavas went into exile and returned. I waited and waited for Shikhandi’s wife to call her husband to bed. Meanwhile, my body transformed. I grew breasts. A slit formed between my legs. I grew a womb. I was just getting used to be being a woman when the Pandavas invited Shikhandi to fight alongside them in Kuru-kshetra. Just before he rode into battle, his wife finally let him do what he should have done on their wedding night. I expected my manhood to return that very moment. But it did not.’ The Yaksha put his tiny hands on his large head and pouted like a little girl.

  Despite the feeling of dread building up in his heart, Somvat could not help smiling. The whole story was so bizarre. He felt sorry for the Yaksha whose compassion had cost him his manhood. ‘Why was that?’

  ‘A mystery,’ said the Yaksha, jumping up. ‘I went to Alaka-puri and questioned my king, Kubera. He kicked me on the head and said, “Serves you right for showing compassion to a human. You know how they are.” Then he laughed and all the Yakshas laughed with him. “Now that you are a woman you should stay a woman. We can all have fun with you,” he suggested. I kept quiet. Did I tell you Kubera has a very nasty sense of humour? And he hates humans, uses them as beasts of burden. Rides on their backs as Shiva rides on a bull. After much harassment he told me why the manhood clung to Shikhandi’s body. “His wife sought him in love. Her withered womb has bloomed with a child. The manhood therefore clings to the father and will go nowhere. Such is the law of Prajapati.”’

  Sthunakarna had asked Kubera ‘What is to become of me? How will I become whole again?’

  Kubera had replied, ‘Find a man who wants to become a woman. Take his penis and give him womanhood in return.’

  ‘Do such men exist?’

  ‘You have just lost your manhood to a woman who wanted to become a man. Then the