Anyway, this thing happened one afternoon in May – and was it like last year – or was it the year before – sometimes you can’t quite tell how long ago things happened. It’s like the skin on your bones. You look at it and you see the wrinkles, but you don’t feel the years. It feels like it’s been there all along. Like you’re still the woman you were, arrow-eyed, fire-breathed, curved along the waist and shadowed under the ankles and the elbows and the small of the back and fragrant under the knots and creases.

Oh did I digress? It must be the summer riding down the foot-trails. So what was I saying? Oh yes. The month of May that year. It was way into the other part of hot season and we were all tired and run down, camping in the forests, trudging along so slowly that it made the snails appear like the spring winds. And all the men at home had got sunburns on their face and backs, their beards would stink of the dust and grime and their bodies – god you couldn’t get close to them for even an embrace – their bodies were sticky with sweat; was like having horses in the house.

Water was scarce. The land had got caked and cracked. Mornings I’d wake up and hear them curse in the corners of the camp. Afternoons were peaceful and lonesome. They’d all be gone to hunt. What measly stuff they brought home – made my stomach churn – rats and rabbits, sometimes snakes even.

Of them all, my favourite man was the fellow with moustaches and long limbs. He had a good eye. He was the best hunter. And he kept himself clean. But even the best of men crack under pressure. I mean they don’t have the resilience of women. All their bravado, all their certainties, all their joys and jests disappear under sustained pressure. Same went with my favourite man. He’d been sulking for the past few months now. He lost interest in hunting. He stopped talking to me. And he’d roam the forests all day, looking dour and melancholic.

So that afternoon, when I was feeling really down, unwanted and pretty unused, I heard a voice call out to me from outside.

“Sakhi, aye sakhi!”

God! I said to myself. It’s him. And it was. And he looked good. His dark skin seemed to shine with good health. And the long walk through the forests seemed to have done him good. And he had not lost any of his cynical, sarcastic, sharp wit.

So he came in laughing and gave me a hug that took the breath out of my lungs and left a deep glow on my back, just under my shoulder blades.

“God! I said. Look at you! What vanity! You’ve actually perfumed your hair.” – His hair had brushed across my face as he came out of the embrace and I could smell musk. Musk!

“Sakhi! One cannot get complacent with these things. You got to keep up. Stay in shape. One’s got to be a man of the world. Hehe.”

Who could argue with him? Not me.

I got to confess one thing. That afternoon, when he came breezing into our forest camp, he really lighted my spirits up. But my moustached, sulking, dour husband sauntered in just when I was warming up to a conversation, a real one, after a long long time.

Sakha turned to my husband and chuckled. They were meeting after many years, but sakha had this habit of meeting as if he’d been around all along.

“So, Partha…you look troubled. What’s the matter? Frowning so much will not help, you know. Gosh, look at that frown! Sakhi, better talk to your husband he’ll get these very funny ungainly lines on his forehead if he continues with it. Ok? Haven’t you been keeping your man happy? The women these days…uuff!”

“I need to talk to you!” Partha said. He looked like death.

Sakha is a good man, you know. He’s a really good man. But all good men have a problem, a flaw. They don’t know how to say no. Predictably, Sakha walked away with my husband, as if it would change anything.

The rest of the story I got to know from him. My husband I mean.

This was a week after that day. We were eating fresh meat and fruits. The fire from the stove was scalding my shin under the robe. I looked bored. My husband, the moustached dour sulky guy, stared silently at his plate.

“You know what happened that day?” He said, “That afternoon, when he’d come.”

I really wanted to know, OK. But I didn’t let on. I pretended as if I was mildly interested. That should get him going surely, yes.

“We were walking down the path near the stream. The narrow one. And I told him about what I had been thinking for the past few weeks. You know, I did tell you about it. Didn’t I? – About this...this thing that’s been rankling in my head. About all the difficulties we’ve had to bear. All the fights in the family. The evil in my cousins. This life of pigs we live now. Look at you. Dressed in rags. And look at me. Not the man I used to be certainly. And my brothers are all…they look like scavengers. They eat like hyenas. Do we deserve this? I told him. I said that I would change it. I have the ability. You know it. Right? Don’t I have the ability? I can change it. Can’t I? Single-handedly. It’s my will that matters. I told him. That I didn’t believe in fate. I would beat it. And all the astrologers you’ve been seeking out can go wash their faces in the mud behind our camp.

“And we were walking by the narrow stream. And he just got quieter and quieter and refused to get dragged into the argument. But when I pushed him – I said, what’s it with you? You’ve got to take a stand man. It’s got to be this or that. Will or fate? – He grinned and said – since you’re high on will, I’ll take fate. And then he began to chuckle again. So I got really furious. The way I get when I am in the middle of a fight.”

My husband is not a boor. He’s one of the finer specimens of men. No, really. But he can get on your nerves when he’s talking about himself. Men can be so full of themselves. Not my Sakha, though. But that’s another thing.

Anyway he was half way through dinner already. And seemed pretty excited. As if he was telling me the exciting adventures of a great traveler. Which he was not.

He continued looking deadly serious - “I looked around the banks. And suddenly, I spied this small mango sapling. I turned to him and said, listen, if you’re so sure that fate rules all beings, why don’t you tell me the future of this sapling. Eh?”

“He smiled. Can’t understand why he’s always smiling. He walked up to the sapling, very confidently; then, he bent and placed an ear against one leaf. I wanted to say something, but he stopped me with a wave of his hand – as if he could hear the sapling’s fate – the charlatan! Then he stood up, drew himself to his full length and said – This sapling will grow into a good healthy mango tree and one day I will bring my sakhi and you mangoes from here.

“Yeah, sure, I said. And I walked up to the sapling and pulled it with one clean sweep of my hand. I said - There you are!

“He just shrugged his shoulders and said - you win!

“The next day, once again, we went walking down the same trail. It was his idea! And we were just talking about this and that…and he kept smiling that same mischievous smile that gets under my skin…and when we get to that very spot, what do I see? Eh? I see the mango sapling back in place. My eyes practically rolled out of my head. I looked at him. I couldn’t believe it. He just shrugged. I got so mad that I pulled out the sapling once again and threw it with all my might right across the river.

“That man! He’s something. Really! The next day and the next day and the next day, again and again and again, the same thing happened. And each time I’d throw the sapling away, he’d burst out laughing and say – see, I told you, I told you, Partha!

“So, finally I gave up and asked him what was it? I mean, how could it happen? How could the sapling come back every evening?

“You know what he said?”

I shook my head. I could almost see Sakha doing his ‘thing’.

“He looks me in my face. No expressions. And he says – I put it back every night. I put the sapling back.

“Really, I could have burnt the forest down. I was so mad at him. But I collected myself and said – Listen, how is that the doing of fate?

“He looked at me and said – Listen Partha, it’s pretty simple. It was fated that I will it. It was fated that I will it to life. To live. And it does. And it will.”

And that was that. My husband got up and left.

And many years later. After the Great War, just before he died, Sakha sent me a box of mangoes with a message for me:

“It’s pretty simple. It was fated that I will it. It was fated that I will it to life. To live. And it does. And it will. Ask your husband what I mean Sakhi, he’ll tell you. Hehe.”

Of course, Sakha was right. It is fated that he will what he will. And everything that fated happened. Isn’t it, Sakha?

You could answer every question they asked you. But you never answered mine.

Tell me Krishna, what did it mean, when you called me, Draupadi, your Sakhi? And what was it a part of? My fate? Or your will?