Like Yudhistira, there was once a king who lost his kingdom and riches through a game of dice. This story, of the king Nala of Nishada, is narrated to Yudhistira as the Pandavas spend time in their forest exile.
The story is actually not Nala’s alone, but belongs equally to his wife, Damayanti. Nala loses his kingdom to his younger brother, and so husband and wife have to go to the forest with nothing more than a single garment to cover both their bodies.
There, Kali, a personification of the new eon, or yuga, that is upon the world, meets them. Kali wishes to harm the couple and therefore it enters Nala (there hasn’t been a more literal interpretation of ‘the times are corrupting us’ that this in all of literature, I guess). One night, driven by the fever caused by Kali, Nala abandons his still-sleeping wife, leaving her with half of the garment to cover herself.
Damayanti begins looking for her husband while also struggling to keep herself safe from a series of debacles. She eventually joins a caravan headed towards the kingdom of Chedi.
The queen of Chedi provides refuge to Damayanti without knowing her real identity. It is rather generous of the queen to do that, for Damayanti is very dirty in appearance at this point. Yet, it is in Damayanti’s bodily form that the queen sees some hints of nobility — the radiance shining through despite the grime, so to say. Damayanti doesn’t keep even inside the palace, apparently due to some need to continue wearing that torn rag over her body and to remain in the same state that her husband left her in (though, clearly, her state is worsening).
It is possible that this lack of hygiene is simply the result of grief. At any rate, Damayanti is recognised by an emissary from her father’s kingdom (Vidharbha) and is thus reunited, at least, with her family.
Nala, on the other hand, has been bitten by a serpent. The bite has changed Nala’s form, but its poison has affected only Kali. The serpent is in fact a benign one, and advises Nala to join the court of the king Rituparna of Ayodhya, who has great knowledge of dice. Nala, on the other hand, knows everything about horses, and so he adopts that name Bahuka becomes Rituparna’s charioteer.
Despite a different form, suggestions that Bahuka is in fact Nala eventually reach Damayanti, who knows that her husband has unparalleled knowledge of horses. She sends a sly message to Rituparna, inviting him to a swayamvara. But the deadline is kept really close. Damayanti’s logic is that only Nala can drive a chariot with such speed.
Rituparna is, of course, set for a minor heartbreak. But at some point during his journey to Vidharbha, he exchanges his knowledge of dice for Nala’s knowledge of horses. After reuniting with Damayanti, Nala uses that knowledge of dice to avenge his kingdom from his brother. No such thing, of course, shall happen for Yudhistira.
Tanuj Solanki
Twitter@tanujsolanki
The writer is reading the unabridged Mahabharata