Savitre had smiled sadly. ‘Karna, I say this with the deepest affection, concern and wisdom: Your path towards glory is intertwined with your path towards destruction. They are one and the same. For your well-being, you should desist from the path I am showing you.’

‘What would you have me do? Stay in Hastinapur?’

‘Yes. Stay here. Tend to the horses. And I promise you will find peace and harmony…in time…a wonderful wife who will beget you beautiful sons and strong daughters, who will themselves have children as fine as the Gods you worship. They will all remember your name…’

‘And after them?’ Karna had asked, knowing the answer.

Savitre Lios had sighed. ‘But after your grand-children, your name will be lost. You would have made no ripples in the history of time. Yet you will have lived a full life.’

‘And if I go to Meru?’

‘Immortality, as you wished. Glory and your name will be mentioned in the same breath. Bards will sing of your prowess for thousands of years after your bones have turned to dust. Sons of every man in Aryavrat will know your name for generations to come, but you will have no sons.’ Savitre Lios’ throat had tightened briefly. ‘If you go to Meru, you will die. And you will live an accursed life. Peace will elude you. You will be betrayed. You will be scorned in love. Your kingdom will never be yours. You will pay the price of friendship with the blood of your brothers. You will die a gruesome death. For your doom walks hand in hand with your bow…’

Karna had not paused to consider why Savitre Lios had said brothers instead of brother. He had but one. ‘I will go to Meru!’ he had cried. ‘This is not peace. I will never fall in love. No one wants to be my friend anyway. The life I live now is hell. Nothing could be worse than this.’

‘You are just a boy to think this way. You don’t know what you will be giving up.’

‘I am nine summers of age. Almost a man grown,’ Karna had said sternly. ‘I want to be a warrior, and not just a warrior, but the finest the world has seen!’

The thought had consumed him ever since he had been rejected by Acharya Dron. He thought of it lying abed at night, cleaning the stables, grooming the horses, bathing in the river, teaching young Lordlings to ride. And now, by speaking it aloud, he had broken the seal on his pain. ‘I don’t want a wife. I don’t want a mistress. And I don’t want sons. All I want is glory. I don’t want to be defined by my birth…as I have been from childhood: ‘Karna you cannot drink from that well’; ‘Karna you cannot pick up a weapon’; ‘Karna, you cannot fight back’. I refuse to be defined. The only reasons these Namins define us is to limit us. And I don’t care about peace in life. Peace is only for the privileged.’