Living with a PBPD

I am married to a woman with the blackest kind of BPD, comorbid with paranoia. If not for our daughter I would have divorced her and probably filed a lawsuit for partner abuse.

She took away all my financial means on the pretext that I was secretly abusing that money. Then she threw me out of the house because she claimed to be repulsed by the very sight of me. For a year I was the highest salaried homeless person in town.

She forbade me going near my daughter who loves me crazy because according to her I am a child molester. And then she started using my daughter against me. The little one has already started to show signs of PTSD. A result of her BPD driven parenting.

She found my family, my mother, my friends, my passion for art and poetry and even my job to be her enemies. So, she crested enough drama to isolate me from all of that. When the isolation came to a satisfactory level for her she started a direct smear campaign against all.

I have started to ignore her completely. I don't respond to her provocations anymore, so she is increasing the intensity and changing her tactics. She is at the moment confused by her inability to hurt me crazy. But I know she will find a way.

She may be disturbed, but her acts make her completely evil. I don't care for me anymore. Everything I had she managed to destroy – career, family, poetry, love, hope, joy… everything. I have no reason to continue living if not for my daughter.

I worry about the little one. An evil BPD mother is one of the worst things to happen to a child. I couldn't protect myself from the darkness of a PBPD. But I need to protect my daughter from her evil mother.

I am afraid that she will start hurting her to get to me. When that happens, I might come down upon her with hell fire. God be my witness.

Early in my marriage with my really black PBPD wife when one of the periods of peace went too long I started getting hopeful. I was putting 200% effort to meet every standard, every demand, every requirement possible. I was hopeful that my hard work was paying off. I thought I had managed to please the unpleasable.

Then one day she very sweetly, as sweet as a Mafia executioner, brought me back to reality, “See, now that I don't speak about the filthy life you lead how nice the home is working?” I was ignorant. I really tried to understand the “filthy life” I was leading at the time. Believing in her and trying to improve my self has done me more harm than anything else.

I am struggling to survive through a toxic marriage with a PBPD every day. Her greatest weapon to keep the Stockholm Syndrome alive is tactful hoovering, tactics that I now call the butterfly flutter, the everything is as fine as before, the you need me, the I need you… and so on.

My biggest survival tactic is of a grey rock, silently, patiently and consistently merged into the background. As little interaction as possible, which is often almost zero contact. Tough when you share a house and a daughter you both care about. I am trying. Hard. It's not easy, believe me.

It's working. Way less hoovering these days, and way absolutely horrible meanness and open hostility, all without any apparent change in triggers.

Considering how hyper-sharp in torture department she is I still am afraid that she will find a way to get to me to grind me down to earth whenever she feels like. Until then grey rock is working notwithstanding how twisted that working is.

My bpd partner has ruined lives of me and my daughter as well as her own. I am trying to salvage something at least for my daughter. I used to love her like crazy, now I completely hate her, and I don't think I can ever love her again even a bit.

Why can't we make a sterilization bomb to drop on the third world to force them to stop birthing out babies and overtaking our nations?

Can I offer my country to be the first victim?
I am assuming that you mean poor countries when you say the third world, because, you see, there is no third world until you can tell what a second world is. More on that later.
I am a Bangladeshi from Bangladesh, one of the sh*thole countries that can’t stop birthing and are overtaking your nations.
By your nations, I assume that you mean affluent and developed countries, like western Europe or norther America, who by your mistaken notion belong to a first world (I wonder where the second one is, hmmm). Nice. I know who you are and I know where you live. In a moment that would become important.
First of all, my poor little sh*thole of a homeland is very crowded.

And, that holds us back a lot, despite making some amazing progress in the last decade or so.

The population is still growing, though at a rate of 1.1% now. There are some some 147 million of us (may be even 180 million, some say) living in 147,570 km². That means a Iceland-sized country (population 300,000) is hosting a Russia-sized population (size 17.1 million km²).
In Russia, about 9 people live per km², and in Iceland about 3 people. In Bangladesh, 1,500 people live per km². 20 million more of us floating around the world.
You want to stop us from overtaking your nation? Dude, we want us to stop from overtaking our own country. We are overtaking it a little too aggressively. Much like them…

If you don’t know who they are, let me introduce you the locusts, one of the seven pestilences of Egypt, the vanguards of the wrath of Abraham’s god.
We would appreciate the sterilisation bomb very much.

You see, all of us poorer and less developed countries have been trying to sterilise our people, without much success. May be, just may be, a sterilisation bomb would do the trick. In Bangladesh we started back in 1950s, and are still not making much progress.
But there’s a small problem. You will have to make that sterilisation bomb really big. Awfully big. Because, most of the 7 billion people in the world live in those poorer and less developed countries.

And, if it is really that big as to sterilise all of us citizens of sh*tholes, then it definitely will have residues in the air. All biological bombs work that way, as well as most other bombs, if not all.
When you have sterilisation agents polluting the air like thick smog. You face the consequences.

The winds that carried you sailships across the world and back colonising and plundering us for centuries will also, quite definitely, carry the sterilisation agent. To your nations. Super-volcano eruptions have been known to do that quite efficiently, despite volcanic ash being much heavier particles than biological agents.
That is terrible, innit?
When all you population goes infertile, everywhere on earth, you will have the last human generation roaming around. Everyone Dies™ in a generation. When they depart, the entire world goes back to its pre-human party.

Almost.

---

P.S. Please note that the third world is an outdated and obsolete concept and and an anachronistic throwback from the Cold War era, concocted by propagandists to denote countries that are unaligned to either USA or USSR (like Switzerland), while the first world were countries aligned with the US (like Haiti) and the second world were countries aligned with USSR (like Iran).

Food in ancient South Asia

The earliest Indians, the Harappans, probably ate mainly wheat and rice, millet and sorghum, chickpeas and lentils. Often they ate fish, if they lived near the coast or a river.

The earliest Indians, the Harappans, probably ate mainly wheat and rice and chickpeas and lentils, and occasionally cows, pigs, sheep, goats and chicken. Indian cooks used many Central Asian herbs and spices - cinnamon, cumin, coriander, anise and fennel. Some of the wheat was made into stews or soups, and some into flat breads called ‘chapatis’ or yeast breads called ‘naan’. Indian people also enjoyed chewing on sugar cane, which grew naturally in India.

Sometimes they ate beef, pork, lamb and goat meat, and chicken. Rice and chicken and citron fruit seem to have come from Thailand. Wheat and chickpeas, lentils and lamb came from West Asia. Indian cooks used many Central Asian herbs and spices, like cinnamon, cumin, cilantro (also called coriander), anise, and fennel.

Cooks made some of the grain into stews or soups. They baked grain into flat breads called chapatis or yeast breads called naan. Indian people also enjoyed chewing on sugar cane, which grew naturally in India.

Food in Ancient India faced remarkable changes during the Vedic Period which not only introduced new food items but also rules and etiquettes while taking the meal of the day. This also introduced division of meals during the day. The food in Vedic period is largely divided into the food of the Aryans and Dravidians which later on got divided into north and south India. Their food items as well as habits have been illustrated in the sutras and Vedas of the period which are the earliest literature of ancient India.

But by around 300 BC, under the Mauryans, a lot of Hindus felt that animal sacrifices added to your karma. Eating meat kept you from getting free of the wheel of reincarnation. Animal sacrifices became less popular. Although people didn’t give up eating meat entirely, they ate much less of it. A lot of people became vegetarians.

Mauryan food scientists expanded fruit choices for these new vegetarians by breeding two different kinds of citrus fruit together to get sweet oranges. About this time, these same food scientists also developed a better kind of sorghum, durra sorghum, that was easier to harvest. This new sorghum quickly spread to China, West Asia (and from there to Europe) and East Africa.

Food in Ancient India that was adopted during the Maurya period has been extensively discussed by Kautilya. He defines the specifications of an ideal kitchen and a proper diet of the Raja in Maurya Empire which was largely followed as a convention by almost all the people living in Maurya Empire. While this also sets a number of special food items and food etiquettes, this at the same time describes the culture of ancient India.

By around 300 BC, under the Mauryans, a lot of Hindus felt that animal sacrifices are added to ones karma and kept one from getting free of the wheel of reincarnation. Animal sacrifices became less popular, and although people didn’t give up eating meat entirely, they ate much less of it. A lot of people became vegetarians. Mauryan food scientists expanded fruit choices for these new vegetarians by breeding two different kinds of citrus fruit together to get oranges.Food in Ancient India, History of Indian Food

In the Gupta period, around 650 AD, Hindus began to worship a Mother Goddess. Cows were sacred to her, so Hindus stopped eating beef pretty much completely.

About the same time, Indian scientists invented a way to make sugar cane juice into sugar cubes. More people started to eat more sugar and sugary desserts. By 900 AD, lemons and purple carrots reached India from Central Asia too.

Food in Ancient India which was adopted by the Gupta Empire was mainly influenced by Buddism and Jainism which made a lot of changes in the culture of ancient India. In the Gupta period, around 650 AD, Hindus began to worship a Mother Goddess. Cows were sacred to her, and so Hindus stopped eating beef pretty much completely. About the same time, Indian scientists invented a way to make sugar cane juice into sugar cubes, so more people began to eat more sugar and sugary deserts. By 900 AD, new Central Asian fruits and vegetables, lemons and purple carrots, reached India too.

And then around 1100 AD, with the Islamic conquests in northern India, most people in India stopped eating pork as well, because the Quran says not to eat it. People could still eat lamb or goats or chicken, but most of the people in India became vegetarians, and only ate meat very rarely or not at all. Along the coasts and rivers, though, people did still eat plenty of fish.

The vegetarian food that Indians ate was mainly wheat flatbreads or a kind of flatbread made out of chickpeas, with a spicy vegetarian sauce with lentils, and yogurt. Or people ate rice, with yogurt and vegetables.

Drinks in ancient South Asia

Water (pani), of course, including spiced water like nimbu-pani (citrus-water) or jeera-pani (cumin-water). And, milk.

There were many milk-based drinks, including milk-based booze and milk mixed with cannabis-juice.

Milk and various milk products that were used include clarified butter, curdled milk, dadhi (curd), karambha (porridge), ghrta (unmelted butter), navanita (cream or fresh butter), sdnndyya (mixture of curd and milk), mixture of milk and sotna, cam (milk, curd, honey, butter etc. mixed together), sara (thickened surface of milk), etc.

Fruit juices, including fruit based booze. Honey, sugarcane-juice and palm juices, including booze made out of them.

There were many different types of fermented drinks made out of millet, barley or rice, many of them spiced/spiked to make interesting cocktails.

They even drank leaf-juices, root-juices and flower-juices. And, the king of it all - the juice of the Soma, a potent hallucinogenic beverage enjoyed, according to myths, by gods, demons and men alike.

Among leaves Aloe probably was the most popular, and among roots lotus-roots.
Soma is a long story. While it has been described extensively, especially its effects, across ancient history in most established text, the source of Soma, the Soma plant, remains unidentified.

Sarcostemma acidum, Amanita muscaria, Ephedra gerardiana, and Psilocybe cubensis has variously been proposed as the Soma Plant by different authors.

Opium and cannabis drinks have also been proposed as Soma, but that view is not endorsed by academic mainstream.

What is your reason for owning more than one gun?

I keep this…

inside this…

because I don’t want to fall prey to them…

or them…

or even them…

thank you.

Longest living human in evidence

Jeanne Calment. When she died in 1997 in France, she was 122 years old.
She was born in France a year before Alexander Graham Bell patented his telephone and 14 years before Alexandre Gustave Eiffel built his tower. She met Vincent van Gogh when she was 13.
Public health researcher and her biographer Jean-Marie Robine said, her secret was that “she was someone who, constitutionally and biologically speaking, was immune to stress.''
The rest of the top five longest living humans recorded ever:

May be their age at the time of death is not old enough. Let’s take a walk to the wild side to look for longer living people.

1. Zahhak (ضحّاک‎) lived for 1,000 years.
2. Methuselah (מְתוּשֶׁלַח) lived for 996 years.
3. Adam (אָדָם, آدَم‎) lived for 930 years according to bible, or 960 years according to hadith.
4. Jamshid (جمشید) lived for 700 years.
5. Bhishma (भीष्‍म) lived for 370 years.
6. Zuo Ci (左慈) lived for 300 years.
7. Nestor of Gerenia (Νέστωρ Γερήνιος) lived for 300 years.

I have not included immortals like Ashwatthama or Al-Khidr.
As for general people, here is a map of life expectancy:

The Japanese are the longest living people, with 84 years life expectancy., followed by Switzerland with 83.5 years. Singapore, Australia and Spain come next with 83 years life expectancy. With 80 years of life expectancy the US comes 31st on the list, and my country Bangladesh comes 102nd with 72 years.

Why Islam is viewed negatively?

There are a number of Christian terror groups are still out there, killing and torturing. (6 modern-day Christian terrorist groups)

Hindus in remote India still kills people on witchcraft charges. (Fighting Modern-Day Witch Hunts in India’s Remote Northeast)

Buddhist monks are fanning ethnic cleansing in Myanmar. (Straying From the Middle Way: Extremist Buddhist Monks Target Religious Minorities)

Communist factions are still bombing and burning in some corner of the world or other. (10 Left-Wing Terrorist Organizations From Around The World)

Every religion has its fair share of people who are violent and intolerant.

But, for most religions they are outliers. No one takes them as mainstream. Violent and intolerant people in most religions do not have funds, resources or connections to worry about.

Islam is different.

Because the violent and intolerant people of Islam are sitting on the biggest funds and resources in the world. And that doesn’t just include the declared and identified terror groups. Governments and communities practising intolerance, human rights abuse and violence in the name of religion/god are part and parcel of the scenario.

I am looking at the lowest common denominator among the Islamist intolerance and human rights abuse - Salafism. Following is a map of the Salafist world.



Then comes the map of their resource:



They have gas. And that makes them dangerous. That also makes them a target.

Muslims in the post-WWII world were led by people like Gamal Abdel Nasser, Mahathir Muhammad, Muhammad Ali Jinnah et al. They were liberals, and they were tolerant to a high degree.
Muslims were led by Ottoman, Abbasid, Idrisid, Mughal and a number of other empires. Those were largely liberal (at least liberal enough for their times) and sometimes highly tolerant. Ottomans sheltered Jews persecuted across Europe and Mughals experimented with Hindu-Muslim religious fusion.

In fact, the average Christian was way more violent and intolerant than the average Muslim in the middle ages. The Christian Crusades were worse than the Islamic Jihads.

But, the Crusades ceased. With the advent of Protestantism, Lutheranism and other more tolerant types of Christianity the whole religion grew out of its violent and intolerant past. The Spanish and French killed or force-converted entire populations in America and Africa. The British ruled half the world without any religious oppression.

The religious fringe for all religions withdrew to the fringe by 1970s. Only the communist threat remained. It was the time of so-called clash of civilisations - the liberal and democratic West versus the communist East.

In a hurry to end that status quo, the US created its greatest folly. And that involved Muslims.
By the 1980s USSR became the biggest oil power in the world, and it was their only foreign currency earner. President Ronald Reagan hatched the brilliant plan to offset Russian dominance in the world market with an alternative source.

That source was in the Gulf, and sitting on it were the fringest of fringe Muslims, desert dwellers who were denied any culture, literacy or civilisation for long. Arabia was ruled by desert Emirs who had only one claim to fame - superiority in horseback warfare (yes, in mid 20th century).

The US funded, trained and armed those fringe Muslims, the only followers of hardline Salafi movement, to extract, export and defend the oil. The whole balance of the world was reverted.



The result?

The most awesome strategic victory in history: Fall of Soviet Union and the Eastern Block, followed by capitalism in China and Indo-China. It was a victory of trade and diplomacy over military interventions.



The Muslims were the newest weapon of the US against the Red Empire. President Reagan also funded, trained and armed Afghan Mujahideens (groups that followed another fringe school of Islam, and who also were poor, illiterate and extremely backward) to fight against Russian occupation forces and heir collaborators.

Pakistan was already a US ally, and a bulwark against Soviet presence in South Asia. Mujahideens found a safe heaven in Pakistan, in areas dominated by gun-trotting Muslim ignorants, the violent fringe.

With all the oil, money and guns… the US propped up the Muslim fringe. It is like handing free guns, money and protection to KKK, hoping that they will be under control.

They are not under control anymore.

The little control they had - strong-man rulers of Iraq, Syria and Libya were either ousted or in trouble because of US intervention.

Illiterate followers of fringe Islam became the mainstream, and they have no scruples or control to stop them. They are not even articulate enough to make sense of their philosophy (the communists were way better in that regard).

One of my friends was a student of medicine in Morocco. Two of his classmates were Afghans who had fought as the Mujahideen. In the second year of their studies the Afghan boys packed up and left, telling that war was easier and more fun than studying medicine.

Another of my friend was a WHO worker in Khyber. At one time when he went with his team to immunise a village, the villagers took shelter in a cave, put artillery at the mouth of the cave and started shooting with assault rifles. All that because they believed that polio vaccines somehow takes away their Iman.

Yet another of friend was a hospital steward in Saudi Arabia. He was charged with weed smoking, and his tauba spared him from death. He came back with one of his hands cut off.

These are the people the US funded, trained and armed.

They key words are not Muslim or Islam. The keyword is fringe. Whatever religion violent and intolerant people belong to, they operate in the same way. With Islam they have more power.

For us, this is not the face of Islam any more:



…nor this:



…nor this:



…nor this:



We have successfully marginalised those who should be mainstream, and mainstreamed those who should remain in the political margins.

The story is the opposite for all other major faiths, including even communism.

And that’s why Islam receives so much negativity.

Life expectancy in the middle ages

The average life expectancy for a male child born in the UK between 1276 and 1300 was 31.3 years. However, by the time the 13th-Century boy had reached 20 he could hope to live to 45, and if he made it to 30 he had a good chance of making it into his fifties.(Source: BBC)
In short, if a male living in 1500 managed to see his 21st birthday, he was expected to live around 30 more years. It was so because, infants and children died at a horrific rate (some say up to 1/3 of all died before the age of 5).
In more details:
Different class of people had different life expectancy.

Life expectancy at birth was 33 years by the Middle Ages. In the Middle Ages, the average life span of males born in landholding families in England was 31.3 years and the biggest danger was surviving childhood. Once children reached the age of 10, their life expectancy was 32.2 years, and for those who survived to 25, the remaining life expectancy was 23.3 years. (Source: International Journal of Epidemiology)
Among royalty, the mean life expectancy for women was 43.6 years, with a median of 42/43; for men, it was a mean of 48.7 and a median of 48/49. The mean life expectancy of kings of Scotland and England, reigning from 1000 A.D. to 1600 A.D. were 51 and 48 years, respectively. Their monks did not fare as well. In the Carmelite Abbey, only five percent survived past 45. (Source: Sarah Woodbury)
Between 1200–1599 and 1600–1900, median age of death was 77.0 (69.0–82.5) for Popes, and 70.0 (60.0–79.0) for church artists. ( (Source: International Journal of Epidemiology) Being born into a family of wealth or status did not guarantee a long life either. In ducal families in England between 1330 and 1479, for example, one third of children died before the age of five.
Causes:

If you were born during the Black Plague, you average life expectancy would be 2 years.
People in the medieval times died of a long list of causes, including famine and food shortages, animal attacks (not just bears and wolves, but also pigs and cows), violence (both bandits and knights killed people frequently, often they also beat each other to death), child birth, disease (dysentery, sweating sickness, St. Anthony’s fire, gonorrhoea, malaria, leprosy, measles, child-bed fever, small pox, tuberculosis, typhoid, syphilis etc. ), falling and drowning, poisoning and drinking, and cold (their homes and clothes were highly inefficient).
The Black Plague (50 million people dead) and wars, including the Crusades (3 million adults dead) killed of a large number of people to bring down the overall numbers.
Beyond Europe:

The highest life expectancy in the world was enjoyed by Muslim Spain, estimated to be 62 years, followed by people of trans-Caucasus, estimated to be 50–60 years. Chinese women lived longer on an average than most places, bringing their average up.
Here are some interesting reads:

• Medieval Diseases
• Disease in the Middle Ages - Historic UK
• 5 strange causes of death in the medieval period
• 10 dangers of the medieval period

How much sleep?

Left to right: 8 hrs, 7 hrs, 10 hrs

Romans probably slept 6–10 hours as inferred by historians. Ancient Indians 4–7 hours as described by Ayurveda. Ancient Chinese slept probably for 8 hours a day, as it is described as one-third of a day.

City of Joy III: What areas are dangerous in Dhaka?

According to Safe City Index 2017, Dhaka is 58th among 60 surveyed cities (Digital Security 58, Health Security 59, Personal Security 43, Infrastructure Security 60). Chicago is 19th and New York is 21st. Only Yangon and Karachi come after Dhaka.

According to Numbeo, Dhaka is the 24th most crime-ridden city. Chicago is 38th and New York is 153rd. Karachi 47th, and Yangon is not on the list. According to a report in the Independent (UK), Dhaka is the 7th most dangerous megacity for women.

The 141 spots identified by Dhaka Metropolitan Police as the most dangerous are:

Maghbazaar-Motijheel: New Eskaton Road, Eskaton Garden Road, Dilu Road, Kakrail intersection, the area of ​​fisheries, the university area and the Doel Square. Dilkusha, Balaka Square, Dainik Bangla intersection, the Dhaka Stock Exchange area, Kamalapur Railway Station area, Fakirapul, Railway Hospital Road, Pirjangi Mazar, Shantinagar intersection, Notre Dame College Gate, Lane Fakirapul Gorom Panir Goli, Rajarbag in front of the telecom building, Ittefaq crossing , Nayapaltan Dgashani Goli, Purana Paltan Mallik Plaza in front of Notre Dame.

Uttara: Some roads in sectors 11 and 13 , Abdullahpur, House Building, Jasimuddin Road, airport and railway station areas.

Khilgaon-Rampura-Badda: Goran, Malibag, Chowdhury, Khilgaon Sohrab, Pallima Sangsad area, Bhuiyanpara Balur Maath, Rampura Bridge, TV Road, Merul Badda Market, North Badda Police Station Road, South Badda, Kuril Bishwa Road, Aftabnagar Iron Bridge, Central Badda Bepari Goli, Bazar Goli, East Badda Link Road and Graveyard Road.

Jatrabari-Kadamtali-shyampur: Bibi Gardens, Kutubkhali, North Jatrabarhi Kolapotti, Dayaganj intersection, Kazla fringe, Sayedabad Bus Terminal, Janapad Road, Dhalpur Citypolli, Jatrabari Graveyeard Road , near Jatrabari fish warehouse, Maniknagar, Mir Hazaribag Ghantighar, Jurain Balur Maath, Kudar Market, Medical Road, Kadamtali Wasa Road, Shyampur incline.

Gulshan-Banani: Gulshan lakeside, Niketan in front of Shooting Club, Kakali intersection, Banani kitchen market road, Korail slum, Banani flyover, the club and the soldier Chairmanbari area.

Dhanmondi-Mohammadpur: Dhanmondi 8 bridge, Jigatala bus stand, Kalabagan playground, Circular Road (Bhooter Goli), Mirpur Road, Asad Avenue, Aurangzeb Road, Kantasur, Bansgari, Mohammadpur Embankment, Dhaka Residential College area, Adabar road 14, Baitul Aman, Ring Road and Hazaribagh Embankment.

Mohakhali-Tejgaon: Mohakhali Bus Stand, in front of Kacha Bazaar, Tibet intersection, North Begunbari, Hatirjhil, Moghbazar intersection, in front of Malibagh Super Market, Karwan Bazar, grinaroda, Indira Road adjacent to the alley behind T&T office.

Mirpur: Mirpur Embankment from Shah Ali intersection to Dhaur, Mirpur 1 Circle, Mirpur 12 bus stand, south Manipur, Bauniya Bund, Bihari Colony, Agargaon intersection, in front of IDB building, Kalyanpur Housing Estate area, the road in front of Banglabandhu International Conference Centre, Agargaon crossing, Agricultural University area, Darus Salam, Mazar Road.

Old Dhaka: Chan Khar Pool, Tanti Bazaar, Shakhari Bazaar, Nimtali, Sadarghat, Babu Bazar, Kazi Riaz Uddin Road, Dholai Khal, Shahid Nagar and Kamrangir Char.

City of Joy II: How has Dhaka changed since 2008?

Dhaka is the fastest growing megapolis in the world, growing to become one of the top cities in the world in terms of size.

Two things about dhaka have increased dramatically in the last 8/9 years - wealth and population.

Dhaka, already the wealthiest settlement in Bangladesh, has received so much private sector attention and state facilitation that economic growth of Dhaka constantly remained the same till mid 2000s. It now grows even faster, and despite policies and state investment into outer regions increased dramatically in the last decade, Dhaka has maintains the same wealth ratio against rest of Bangladesh.

You would notice wealth everywhere - new movie theaters, shopping malls, car showrooms, spas and salons, hotels, restaurants and cafes, beautified city, beggar free zones (in fact beggars are now a vanishing breed, who appear in Ramadan to supplement whatever income they have in villages), resorts and clubs, amusement, imported brands, luxury apartment blocks, gated communities, school and university campuses… the list is endless.

There have been hundreds of them coming up since 2008, changing old neighborhoods and the cityscape forever. Many of the dilapidated blocks in the old town now features glass fronted banks and shops, shopping malls and superstores, as well as brand shops of the luxury kind. Many quint little parts of the city (like northern parts of Uttara, western parts of Mirpur etc.) are now busy hubspots with tall modern buildings. Many more 1–3 story buildings have been replaced with 10–12 story buildings, and as a result some of the more tightly built neighborhood streets to become narrow urban canyons.

Even cars, of which there are tens of thousands more than 2008, are not just second-hand Toyotas. From Geely cars to Mercedes cars - the choices are endless. Bicycles have come back, motorcycles are everywhere. More streets have banned rickshaws, while electric rickshaws are plying all over the periphery of the city. Black/blue cabs have almost vanished. Yellow cabs are run only by two companies. Uber and car rentals have taken over. And, there are way more flyovers. Home delivery and superstores now covers one third of Dhaka, a 100 times increase in a decade.

With all the wealth visible one would expect poverty to become negligible. It didn’t. Because, millions and millions of climate refugees escaping floods, cyclones, droughts and what not have arrived in Dhaka in the last decade, way more than any time in history. 40% of them live in informal shelters, 80% of them are engaged in informal economic activity. Life is tough for them. But, they still share the general optimism that a flourishing economy brings. Housemaids, once a common feature of every household, and porters, a common feature for almost every public place are dwindling fast in numbers, as neither are consistent with the status they seek.

Informal business is the key. 45% of Dhaka economy is still these micro-enterprises, though the sectors are often different from 2008. Once a ubiquitous feature of every street corner, the common cigarette and candy sellers are becoming increasingly rare, while the once popular modes of transport - the “tempo” or the “hauler” are also vanishing.

This tremendous building boom and population increase has taken toll on the infrastructure. Newer neighborhoods are not getting piped gas, and older neighborhoods are suffering from chronic shortage of water. Safety and security is also lower than before, for four reasons - (a) government affiliated organizations and persons; (b) diverting law enforcement resources to fight terrorism; (c) a corrupt police empowered by extra-judicial power, while the judiciary remains low priority; and (d) extra population that makes governance almost impossible. This has led to a serious decrease in outdoor events like concerts and fairs, as well as serious discouragement of celebrations like international new year and baul festivals.

SHADOWS (Chapter 3): It's hard to hold a candle in the cold November rain

Edvard Munch, The Scream

What shall I do now?  What shall I do?
I shall rush out as I am, and walk the street
With my hair down, so.
What shall we do tomorrow?
What shall we ever do?
— Wasteland, T.S. Eliot


I found me sitting on a box covered with a dusty and torn carpet still staring at the crystal jar, not seeing anything in particular, as if I was coming back from a nightmare. Or maybe I was waking up into the nightmare. I tried guessing how long I have been lost in thoughts, not a bad place to get lost in. Difficult. Shafts of light that poured in were still burning with the warmth of the sun, dust particles fleeting in a gray mist. The next door cat whined like it always did, a very irritating cat that one. Some heavy vehicle roared down the street that was invisible from here, I judged it to be a truck.

And, then it moved. Oh my bloody sisterlicking brotherblowing motherfucking GOD! It moved.

Unnoticeably, softly, slowly… the head opened its eyes, and stared back at me in a hollow and blank uncomprehending meaningless stare. I knew severed heads were not supposed to open eyes that suddenly, I never heard of that kind of rigor mortis in my life. Mesmerized I kept staring at it. It was a stalemate. I did nothing. The head did nothing. Every motion frozen in time, like so much refrigerated lobsters, two heads, one attached to a body and the other without any such commitment, stayed unblinking with eyes locked. Meeeow – it was that nagging stupid cat that broke the spell. I shifted my gaze to my hands, yes, as I felt there was something I held very tight in a double handed grip. Must have been something I picked up when I sat on the box. It was a girl’s bag in tatters – red and black, leather and hemp, with a braided strap and a bell metal buckle… instantly recognizable.

One thing always unfailingly and invariably leads to another. This time the bag led me to a great crossing. The train of memories passed through the great barrier, and, I remembered her face. Ash’s face. That face was a curious concoction that I would never dare to understand – austere like a tava-baked plain flatbread, handed out off a roadside eatery for truckers, or festive like a bowl of Kachi Akhni, the biriyani coming right of the Nizam’s kitchen sporting 50 varieties of meat – changing shades in an instant, and always inexplicably. Tired eyes that sparkled like the night sky whenever she flashed a smile, full lips that always looked a bit chaffed but never felt so when she kissed, cheeks that never could decide between sinking and blushing – the wonders never ceased. And, she lived in a perpetual twilight of fear. She believed no one. Not even me. Not that she had any reason to believe me in any damn way. It was almost like she lived in my shadow, a shadow that only stunk of death and debauchery. Sweet and sad, she still clung on to me.

It was Ash’s face that was looking back at me from inside the jar.

I felt like I was hit by the train that just made the crossing straight in the face, full blast, wheels cranking, rails screeching, winds hissing past. Boom. I started to scream, a completely involuntary and desperate wail of terror and anguish. I screamed on until blood spurted out of my mouth and my nose. Damn! I surely had ruptured some stuff inside. Blood trickled down the side of my neck. Warm and sticky. I toppled off the box headfirst into the dust. And, I lay there. No strength left in me to stir an inch. Then the head chuckled. No, really, Ash chuckled. She never laughed once in all the years she was with me like she did now. Eerie and sarcastic, not an aorta of humor there.

I lay stiff on the floor waiting for Ash to stop chuckling.

SHADOWS (Chapter 2): There's no one left to blame so never mind the darkness

René Magritte, The Lovers

From the old familiar faces and
Their old familiar ways
To the comfort of the strangers
Slipping out before they say
So long
— Run Baby Run, Sheryl Crow

That’s when I found an interesting fact about memories. They are like those Russian dolls, the big one opens to a smaller one, which opens to an even smaller one, and so on. I kept opening pieces of memory only to find more inside, waiting to be opened in an endless journey taking me further, deeper down the roads long forgotten. That winter noon led me to that crow, and then another that I remembered lying on a roadside, guts spilling out, ants making a feast on half-rotting intestines that already were sporting a sickening shade of teal.

I remembered the mountain goat that my mom kept as a pet bleating at the sight of the crow. Well, a goat will always be a goat, and it followed me on most days on my way to school. So bloody humiliating it seemed at the time. That was before we left the little town that saw me running down my first soccer field, falling off my first bicycle, choking on my first chocolate fudge. I remembered taking the first drag on my first smoke at that very town. I vividly remembered the peas my mom served me that night. Amber peas floating on pearly melted goat cheese making acquaintances with crab meat and some sour sauce. Those were quieter days. Gentle. Calm. Laid back. Monotonous.

That was before I started to run. And, those were bad days. Real bad. Abes died, Shib died, and Saif too. It rained death. Death hung over us like filthy sunset clouds painted with factory slime, red and black and gray and gang green. Raja vanished, never to be heard or seen again. Murad got caught. He was tired of running. And, Pat… ah! Pat. They said he turned insane. They said he had an intimate encounter with the divine. They said he was just pretending a lot of fluff and stuff. But, they always were ignorant. Nobody knew Pat, not even us. He liked it that way.

When did the run begin? I didn’t know, probably sometime after I was done with my medical studies. Why were we running? I didn’t want to remember. Too painful, muddled and stupid. Not worth it. When did it end? Now, that I recalled with the sharp precision of a surgeon’s scalpel freshly bathed in glutaraldehyde. I stopped running when Raja’s kid sister Ash appeared at my door, slightly out of breath, somewhat trembling, heavily drenched in rain, and totally demolished by the look in her eyes. She came to seek a shelter, and I was the only one left of us. And, she looked heartstopping beautiful. So vulnerable, yet so ravishingly adorable.

I packed up, and moved to the city, bringing her along. It was a very small bag that she carried all her stuff in, as if she was ready to run again. Probably she had do some amount of running to before she reached me. She never talked about it. I remembered the bag – red and black, leather and hemp, with a braided strap and a bell metal buckle shaped like a hippie peace sign, three zippered pockets in the front. The rush of the memory train hit a wall exactly at that moment. How in the fucking hell did I forget what she looked like? I remembered everything – the breeze, the fragrance of her hair, the coolie who helped me get my heavier luggage into the taxi, the warm tarmac, the sun shining down hard… even the color of her nail polish (black, it was always black). Not her face.

SHADOWS (Chapter 1): When I look into your eyes I can see a love restrained

Willem de Kooning, Attic

Leaving the things that are real behind
Leaving the things that you love from mind
All of the things that you learned from fears
Nothing is left for the years
— Toys in the Attic, Aerosmith


It was a head, a human head, severed from the rest of the body, and perfectly pickled in olive oil, mustard and rock salt. It floated gently in a crystal jar among bay leaves, cinnamon, clove and cardamom, eyes closed in a perpetual expression of bliss. There was sodium ascorbate mixed in the olive oil for preservation, like they do for canned apples and tuna. It could use a little chili and pepper, probably a twist of lemon. But, I didn’t know that.

All I knew was I had a head floating in a jar, a goddamn motherfucking head, perched in my attic between a pile of old vinyl records – Frank Sinatra, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, and Louis Armstrong – and a box full of old yellowing letters carrying the mundane from fading friends – “hello, I’m in Greece now”, and “last night my dog passed away”, and “Shifat is getting married to Jihan”, and whatnot. The very right end of the shelf was piled high with poetry books (no, I don’t like poems) – mostly Sylvia Plath (“We are meek/ We are edible”) and Edgar Allan Poe (“All that we see or seem/ Is but a dream within a dream”). The left end was a total anarchy of porcelain figurines – a Gujju folk dancer, Ming the Merciless, the Little Mermaid, a group of Maasai hunters, Sherlock Holmes… and more of that accumulated from around the world (nah! I was never much of a traveler myself). In the very middle was a head without a body.

And, I had no clue how it came there.

Did I put it there? Did someone leave it accidentally? Perhaps that someone left it on purpose. What could be the purpose? Ummm… that someone probably needed a safe place to hide it. Hide it? Why would someone hide something prepared so lovingly, with such care? Besides, no one from the old days knew where I was, what I was doing, or even what I called myself. Could it be that it was placed there to implicate me? But… wouldn’t that purpose be served as effectively if it was not pickled? Hell, I didn’t know, and the head made no sense.

Where the hell did you come from, sweetheart, and why exactly?

The head didn’t answer, of course. So I put it back on the shelf again, and couldn’t help noticing the way the shelf was rusting away. Woodworms, damp and dust – this shelf wouldn’t hold much longer – I thought for a moment. Then – okay, so what’s wrong with this picture? I had a rusting shelf in an attic, covered with dust, and hosting myriads of knickknacks, old letters and older records, and a head floating in a crystal jar, pickled and peaceful. Did I see anything wrong there? Well… just a little detail. Everything was covered with a thick layer of dust, but the jar.

Yes, it was clean, at least cleaner than the rest of the stuff there. Surely that head couldn’t have come here a long time back. Hey ho, it was freshly pickled, or that’s what it looked like. I stood fixed in front of the head, staring straight into its closed eyes. It wouldn’t open those eyes, though. Memories started trickling in, sipping slowly upwards to consciousness. Those winter noons, sitting with mom on the porch, swimming in the heady aroma of pickles put out to the sun, thinking how to bring down the crow making funny faces at pickle jars. The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new. She loved to cook, for the family and for guests, and she always was eager to spread the joy of culinary adventures around. She was a wonderful woman. Like all moms, well… most moms. No complaints.

If European kingdoms united to conquer the Middle East in the medieval time

This army against that army? You must be joking

During then high middle ages, Europe was divided into small feuding kingdoms, duchies and principalities, most as small as 200–300 square kilometres, with the Holy Roman Empire as the largest state (naturally the crusades were largely led by the Holy Romans). Confederated armies of these small states was so ineffective that it took them four centuries conquer back the Iberian Peninsula (the entire Middle East east had 400 times more land and 300 times more people than the peninsula).

By the end of the misadventures of Richard the Lion Heart, Middle East was pretty well organised by Seljuk Empire, Timurid Empire and Abbasid Empire. It would mean a ragtag army without a command structure going against some of the most organised armies in the world.

If you could still gather an army with an effective command structure, it would be clearly have two components - knights (5% of the army) and peasants (95% of the army). None of the peasants went into battle on their own. They did not know how to fight, had no intention to fight, and were very poorly fed and dressed to be effective in a battlefield. That is the reason why in every battle in Europe all belligerent parties lost large number of soldiers very quickly.

Those feuding commanders with the army of unfed peasants, if they could gather, together would then have faced a longest supply line possible over hostile territories. In the way of the army there stood either the Mediterranean or the Byzantine Empire, the biggest adversary of the Holy Romans, up to 14th century, and then by the Muslim Ottoman Empire since 14th century. Getting a horse or a soldier fed, a weapon mended or wounded soldier treated would be perfectly impossible. Every day of fight would take that army closer to annihilation, not victory.

On top of it they had the quick moving, agile Saracen soldiers who lived by the sword from early childhood. If the European army managed to get past the Byzantines and the Seljuk Turks, they would have faced the Mongol and Persian armies of the Timurid Empire, as well as the desert warriors from Bedouin tribes of Arabia, masters of hit-and-run campaigns.

The elite soldiers, i.e. the Teutonic Knights, wore 50 kilograms of metal armour that not only could slow the soldier down by two thirds, and fried the skin of the soldier in sweltering desert heat. The Slavs and Norse were anyways completely ineffective in hotter southern territories. Throughout the medieval times they never won a war in the southern regions. Middle Eastern did not need to fight them, they just could wait for them to boil in the armours or die of hunger and thirst.

The army of peasants would be a very small army compared to the Middle Eastern, as 30%-60% of those hapless peasants were dead in the Black Plague. The entire population Europe was little more than 50 millions, and most of them were children as life expectancy was less than 30 years. They would have been fighting a population of 70–90 millions with a life expectancy of more 35 years. Even if they could gain a quick hold of the coastal areas, a protracted war would only have meant a Europe further depopulated.

Europeans were very good at getting in the medieval times. In the 13th century the Mongol Hordes had already put the entire Eastern European military to shame by cutting them down like grass, knights included. After the Black Plague and Mongol Invasion, these Slavic armies would have been in no shape to join capture one Middle Eastern waterhole, let alone the entire Middle East.

Finally, the people of Middle East would have fought very hard for their homes and their land, as they would have had no place to go to if they lost. Every wadi, every dune, and every village would have become like Stalingrad in WWII, where the might of the Nazi storm troopers stopped at the door of unyielding Russians, a battle that changed the tides of that war.

In short, if the European Kingdoms tried conquering the “entire Middle East” it would mean total destruction of Europe, not the Middle East. Every last European soldier would have either died of hit, hunger, thirst, Saracen swords, and Mongol arrows. With everyone able to lift a sword dead in the deserts of Arabia, Europe would have become an walk over for North African Moors and the Mamulk Sultanate.

How Profound 😛

Lean On by Major Lazer & DJ Snake keeps bursting forth from the damned speakers. One drunk girl hugs another drunk, "I need someone to lean on. And, that's you." The other girls tumbles and sways. The first girl complains, "How do I lean on to you if you keep tumbling and swaying like that?"

Then they both fall.

Amba the Warrior Woman (epilogue)

It suddenly struck me very hard one morning as picked up the Mahabharata for the umpteenth time. No, the book didn't strike me down. Rather it remained in its usual solidity on my desk, ready to endure another reading through, like I do every damn year. What struck me was this revelation that it is possible to read it discounting the supranormal, the paranormal and any such mythological stuff. Yes, it can be read as history. Of course I was inspired by great historians like Romila Thapar and Rajagopalchari, but at that time it felt like an ingenious idea.

And, you know what? I was trying stitch together the story of Amba, who was "reborn" as Shikhandi. It took me a while to be convinced that her tale could be told without all those rebirths, gods walking among men, the boons granted by gods, and sages who lived forever. Damn, it felt like a goldmine.

Will the real Mahabharata stand up?
But, before I started to figure out her tale, I stumbled upon another real gem. I realized that the Mahabharata is essentially a story of barbarian tribes fighting against each other for trivial reasons. Take the story of Shishupala for instance. Bhima and Krishna walked straight to the house of Shishupala, the emperor of the largest empire, and called him out. When he came out Bhima challened him to a duel, and killed him. Does this sound like there were real empires, palaces, armies and such stuff involved? Not to me. Or, take the story of Arjuna at the court of King Birata. Karna, Duryadhona and some other warriors of the Kaurava clan came and tried to take away a herd of cows that the king owned. Arjuna had to fight really hard to get the cows back, and he was much appreciated by the court. Cows!!! Oh, please. Remember, many of the Kings and Emperors had seen glass for the first time when Yudhishthira built his new palace.

Poor people leaving in huts made of mud, straw, bamboo and wood - that's what a palace was. Most travelled on foot, even the princess, and at every turn the cities (rather, the larger villages) stood like island in seas of forests. Cows were the biggest asset, nomads came from many corners, iron was a wonder metal, the laws were not written down (in fact most people didn't know the alphabets, not even kings and princes, and hence the abundance of oral messages), and the clan system was way stronger than kingdoms with a border (no matter how tentative those borders were). What was I smoking? Nothing much, just plain tobacco. This view is well supported by Ms. Thapar, I found out.

I wasn't disappointed. In fact I became even more curious. The more curious I became the more I started to believe that the whole story is a story about the women of Mahabharata. They pulled all the strings, supplied the motivations,

and conspired to make or break "kingdoms". The only woman who didn't do it by manipulating the men was Amba, who decided to take her revenge on her own, and in the process became one of the most feared warriors of her times.

A far fetched dream
I would love to turn her story into a film script someday (I'm working on it, really). I also would like to treat the script as I see Mahabharata - the real history (in reality arrows don't turn around to bite the archer, or dead people don't come back from the netherworld at a sage's wish). I have no idea who is going to turn that script into a film. But, well, that can't stop me from writing it. Not that I don't care. I do. I care so much that I want it to be made before Bipasha Basu grows old. As a feared warrior who also is a sizzling beauty, I can see absolutely no one but Ms. Basu playing the role of Amba. For Bhishma it is entirely possible to cast Amitabha Bachchan for the older version, and Abhishek Bachchan for the younger version (shouldn't take a lot of special effect make up, eh?). The king of Shalwa can, of course, be John Abraham.

Who do I believe can direct this? Well, I'd believe Ashutosh Gowarikar could do justice to the narrative. Haven't think of anyone beyond him. It shouldn't be a very high budget film, as there is no super sets and gorgeous costumes or loads of special effect to depict Brahmastras and shape shifters involved. Let's see what happens.

The journey has began, and there's still a long way to go. Let me tread the road one step at a time. Thanks.


[BTW, critical commentary on and outright criticism of all three parts of the story would be highly appreciated]

Amba the Warrior Woman (part 3)

Long ago in the battlefield of Kurukshetra, the army of the Kauravas and the army of the Pandavas faced each other to fight until total destruction of one army or both. The Kaurava clan including the mighty generals Bhishma and Drona formed the mainstay of Kaurava army. The Panchala army including King Drupada, his two inheritors Amba and Dhrishtadyumna, and his champions Yudhamanyu and Uttamauja formed the backbone of the Pandava army led by Arjuna and his brothers.

Revelation
On the eve of the war, when leaders of both armies gathered in their respective camps, Bhishma declared that he would do his best to exterminate the Pandava upstarts and Drona declared to do everything he can to annihilate the Panchala army. Bhishma was selected to be the general of the Kauravas. At the other camp Arjuna and his brothers divided the army into multiple groups and selected a general each for every group with Dhrishtadyumna as the undeclared de facto general.

Amba, though a mightier warrior than her brother, declared her one goal to fell Bhishma. At the same time Bhishma told the leaders of his army that he would not fight Shikhandi, as he came to deduce from the news that his spies brought that Shikhandi is Amba, a woman. He said a warrior should never fight a woman, a child, an old man or a cripple. Thus on the eve of the war Amba's identity was revealed, but she paid no heed. Only inches away from her goal she was beyond caring for the future.

The war against Bhishma
Next morning the war began. Each of greatest warriors on each side engaged another warrior of his stature from the opposing camp. In this way Amba, the only woman warrior, engaged Drona's son Ashwatthama. Neither could prevail over the other, and they both retired bleeding as the day ended. For next six days Bhishma continued to keep his pledge of exterminating the Pandava army.

On the seventh day of the war Amba managed to engage Bhishma for the first time. Amba attacked Bhishma with all her might, but even in his insistence upon not fighting a woman Bhishma could repel her attacks fine. When other warriors, not bound by the same code, joined Bhishma, she had to withdraw with deep regret. Bishma continued to kill.

On the night of the ninth day of the war, the Pandava brothers went to meet Bhishma in secret to ask for his blessing. Bhishma laughed and told them that at this old age he doesn't want to fight anymore, but he was bound by his warrior's code. He suggested Pandavas to attack him in a formation that puts Amba in the front and Arjuna in the back to fell him. The next day Amba and Arjuna does exactly that. When Ashwatthama came forward in Bhishma's aid, he was thwarted by a ferocious attack from Dhrishtadyumna.

Bhishma felled, severely injured and crippled, and Drona took over as the general of the Kauravas.

The war against Drona
With Bhishma effectively gone from the scene, Drona set out on tactics that did not correspond exactly with the warrior's code. Together with son and other warriors including Jayadratha, he ganged up against Arjuna's son the child warrior Abhimanyu and killed him. When a grief stricken Arjuna vowed to kill Jayadratha to avenge his son or die himself, Drona tried to keep Jayadratha away from the battlefield, expecting Arjuna to die to keep his oath. Jayadratha was killed by Arjuna anyways. Drona at same time killed Drupada, the King of Panchala.

Krishna, a friend of both Draupadi, princess of Panchala, and Arjuna, the finest warrior prince of the Pandavas, advised the Pandavas to slay Drona by any means even if the means was a little outside the code. On the fifteenth day of the war false news of Ashwatthama's death was spread, and the news was carried to Drona by the eldest of Pandava brothers. A grief stricken Drona threw his weapons away to break down in tears. Dhrishtadyumna, who was trained from an early age to kill Drona, jumped on him and cut him into two.

The war continued for three more days, and both armies were massacred leaving only a few dozen alive.

End of Amba
On the eighteenth day of the war the Padavas finally came victorious over the Kauravas, and they went to their camp to lick their wounds and celebrate. At the same time, the last handful of Kauravas were gathered by Ashawatthama, who hatched the plan to kill the remaining Pandava warriors in their sleep. Everyone protested first against this devious plan, but Ashawatthama managed to convince them. Thus he became the general for the last night.

Ashwatthama, along with two other warriors, crept into the Pandava camp past midnight and started to slaughter them in their sleep. He killed all of the remaining Panchala people including Amba, Dhrishtadyumna, Yudamanyu and Uttamauja - exactly in that order. Both Amba and Dhirshtadyumna died happy as they had their vengeance fulfilled.

Unknown to all, a Gandharva named Sthunakarna,was freed from the command of his leader, Kubera through Amba's death. He left the Panchala palace to join other Gandharvas after all these years.

~The End~

Amba the Warrior Woman (part 02)

Long long ago in the land of Panchala lived a young price named Drupada who went to the warrior training school of sage Agnibaishya. At the school he became a close friend of Drona, a student from the priest class. The friends parted when they passed out of the school, and went their separate ways. Durpada went on to become the king of Panchala, while Drona went on to embrace an ascetic life. Both got married, and Drona's wife gave birth to their son Ashwatthama. But, Drupada and his wife could not bear a child, and suffered long. Then they decided to ask blessings of Lord Shiva the destroyer.

Sons and daughters
Within a very short time warrior sage Parashurama, who was reputed as disciple of Shiva the destroyer, appeared at the court of Panchala. He introduced Amba, the cast out daughter of the King of Kashi, as the son Shiva has sent to him. Though a little apprehensive, Drupada accepted Parashurama's words and started bringing Amba up as the crown prince, providing her with all the trainings a crown prince should have. At the royal house of Panchala she took the name Shikhandi and became a ferocious warrior. In due time she was sent off to learn the highest of a warriors art at the ashram of Parashurama.

It was fine till a group of rich kids started making jokes at the poverty of Ashwatthama. Drona went to his friend the king and asked for some riches to raise his son properly. The king laughed and refused recognize their friendship. Drona went out with revenge in mind, a revenge sworn also by Ashwatthama, and went to teach the princes of Kaurava clan the secrets of a warriors art. When his lessons were over Drona asked the princes to humiliate Drupada on his behalf on the battlefield. While Amba was away to her guru's ashram, the princess defeated Drupada to pay their own guru.

Utterly shaken, Drupada decided to ask Lord Shiva for more children, so that his kingdom can always remain safe. This time the queen gave birth to the twins - Draupadi and Dhrishtadumnya. Amba returned to her new home shortly, and the king started to arrange for her marriage. But, since she was raised as a prince, she was married off to woman - the daughter of Hiranyabarman, the king of Dasharna. The newly wed wife of Amba quickly found out the truth about her husband and left for her father in tears.

Saved again
Hearing the story of his daughter an enraged Hiranyabarman sent messengers to Drupada asking for an explanation. Amba's heart sank. After coming so near to her dream of revenge, everything was about to get ruined. She went again to the forests to cry her heart out. This time she was heard by Sthunakarna, a follower of Kuber, the king of Gandharvas, a race of rich nomads famous for their sexual antiques. Sthunakarna asked Amba why she was crying, and upon hearing her story showed her how he l

ooked very much like her. He proposed to play Amba's role in the night to keep her wife happy, while Amba could train and practice for her revenge in the day.

Amba returned to Panchala and challenged Hiranyabarman to prove that she was a man. A dozen of select whores were sent to the court of Panchala, and Sthunakarna left all of them panting for more. Hiranyabarman sent her daughter back and the secret pact between Sthunakarna and Amba started working fine. When Kuber found out about this outrage he forbade Sthunakarna to return as his entourage until Amba died.

Tangled conspiracies
Draupadi grew up, and befriended Krishna, a prince of the Yadava clan. Drupada arranged for her sayabmbara. Arjuna, a prince of the smaller house of Kaurava royalty and a close friend of Krishna, won the saymbara contest. But, invoking an ancient law Arjuna's mother Kunti, got her married to all five of her sons. Arjuna and his brothers turned into enimies of their kins, the larger house of Kaurava royalty, and started calling their fraternity the Pandavas, after the name of their father Pandu, the younger son of Bichitrabirya. They also started referring to the other royal house of Kauravas as Dhartarashtras, after the name of Dhritarashtra, the elder son of Bichitrabirya.

Bitterness between the Pandavas and the Dhartarashtras grew to a point where they declared war against each other for the crown of Hastinapur. Messengers were sent to all royal houses and clans and tribes asking them to join either camp. When the messengers came to the court of Panchala, the decision was quickly made. Since Bhishma and Drona was leading the Dhartarashtra army, and since Amba and Dhrishtadyumna respectively was sworn to kill them, it was not a difficult decision to make. The consideration that Draupadi, their sister, was the wife of all the five Pandava princess was not even needed.

Drupada, Amba and Drishtadyumna led the Panchala army into the War of Kurukshtra to fight against the mighty Dhartarashtra army, which was known to most people as the authentic Kaurava army. The prospects for the smaller Pandava army looked small indeed.

Amba the Warrior Woman (part 01)

Long ago there lived three princesses in the Kingdom of Kashi who went by the names Amba, Ambika and Ambalika. Amba, the eldest, was a beautiful tomboy who was madly in love with the you King of Shalwa. She convinced her father to arrange a sayambara, the choosing of the groom, for her and her sisters, with a plan to choose the King of Salwa, an effeminate guy who wouldn't have been chosen by her father as her groom in any other way.

Catastrophe
But, the sayambara went terribly wrong as Bhishma, the regent champion of the mighty clan of Kauravas, appeared at the ceremony. He was looking for girls young enough to be married off to his young step-brother Bichitrabirya. When everyone laughed at Bhishma, he took the three sisters by force on to his chariot and drove off. When the gathered kings and princes, merchants and priests tried to stop him, he defeated them all. The King of Shalwa was defeated most disgracefully, and he left as a butt of joke to his kingdom.

When Bhishma reached Hastinapura, the Kaurava capital, and started arranging the marriage ceremony, Amba stood up to Bishma. She declared that she was in love with the King of Shalwa and that they were married in their hearts, an

d that it would be unethical for Bhishma to marry her off to his brother. Consulting his priests, Bhishma immediately let her go.

Dejection
Amba went to the court of Shalwa to break the good news of her release to the king. But, the King of Shalwa, a humiliated and tormented soul, refused to accept her. He told in rude terms that he can't entertain someone abducted and thus turned unclean. Heartbroken and humiliated, Amba went to her parental home. But, the King of Kashi refused to take her back as he considered how his subjects would react to him taking a daughter already taken by Bhishma and the King of Shalwa.

Dejected, heartbroken, humiliated and homeless, Amba leaves for the forests and there she starts crying. Hotrabahana, a maternal uncle of Amba and a kingly sage leaving in the forests, took her to his ashrama and sheltered her there. He summoned for Akritabrana, a follower of his friend and Parashurama, to have Parashurama visit the ashrama and listen to the plight of Amba.

Failure
Parashurama, the mighty warrior saint who was engaged in a long raging battle against the warrior class wielding his mighty battle axe, came and listened and proposed two ideas to Amba - he could make the King of Shalwa take her back or get Bhishma to do something about it. A woman scorned, Amba didn't want to go back her lover who refused her in the times of trouble, and asked Parashurama to take an action against Bhishma.

Parashurama sent Akritabrana to fetch Bhishma. Bhishma came armed with weapons handed over to him by his mother, Ganges, a princess of nomads of the rivers. Parashurama asked him to do justice to Amba, and marry her. Bhishma refused, as he was oath-bound to his father not to marry ever. They fought each other for days and nights, and finally both fell exhausted. Unable to prevail over Bhishma, Parashurama asked for Amba's forgiveness. Amba declared, she would seek her revenge on her own.

Parashurama agreed to help her, and took her to Drupada, the king of Panchala.