The wind will not stop today.
It whistles through the broken flags, hums around the dead chariots, and brushes past
My ears like something alive or living. And when the pain fades just a little, when the noise of the war dies down in my head, I think I can hear her again.
My mother.
Not as the Goddess people pray to. Not as the holy river either. Just… my ma. (mother)
I don't remember her face clearly anymore. But I remember her voice. I remember how she used to hum when she thought I was asleep,
Soft little sounds without words passing through my ears. She never sang lullabies like the maids in the palace used to do. She didn't need to. Her voice was enough.
I used to think this whole world was made out of that sound.
And then, one day… it was gone.
I was still just a child when she left. Too young to understand what was happening, but old enough to feel it. One moment, I was walking beside her into the palace; the next, I remember was her letting go of my land.
I remember the way her fingers lingered on mine for just a second too long.
She didn't cry. She didn't smile either. She just turned to my father king shantanu and said something I couldn't hear. Then she took a step back. Then another. and she walked away.
Not toward the gates. Not into the city. She walked straight to the river.
I ran after her. But the more I ran the more her figure vanished. I begged her to stop. I remember tripping on the last step and falling into the sand, just as the water reached her waist.
She didn't look back until the very end.
And when she did it was just one look I saw something in her eyes. It wasn't sadness, or even love. It was something heavier. Something final.
And then she disappeared into the river.
That was it.
No storm. No miracle. No goodbye.
Just gone.
I waited by the river for hours. I thought
Maybe she'll come back. Maybe this was some test. Maybe the gods were watching to see if I was worthy.
But she didn't come back.
The next morning, I woke up in the palace, in a room that smelled like rosewater and silence.
A servant brought food. I didn't touch it. I wasn't hungry. I was waiting.
I waited for days.
No one told me where she'd gone. No one dared say her name. Even my father stayed quiet. He'd glance at me sometimes in the hallways, he had the look of a man who swallowed his voice years ago and couldn't find it anymore.
After a while, I stopped asking.
But every evening, I'd sneak out and sit by the river. I just sat listening, watching and hoping.
And the river kept following.
As I grew older, people started calling me a prodigy.
They said I would be the greatest warrior of my time. That my aim was perfect, my sword fast, my mind sharper than any boy they'd ever seen.
I heard all of it. I even believed some of it.
But none of it made the silence in me go away.
I think I started pretending early. Pretending that I don't miss her anymore.
Truth is, I just got good at hiding it.
And maybe that's when I started becoming what they call me now Bhishma.
Even now, with arrows buried in my flesh and the smell of death all around me, I keep going back to that moment by the river. Not the wars I fought. Not the kings I taught. Not even the vow that changed everything.
Just that day when she left.
Her voice is the one sound I keep chasing.
Not the voice of the goddess. Just the voice of the woman who once whispered my name in the dark.
She called me Devavrata.
I remember one time, when I was very small - maybe three or four I woke up from a nightmare, shaking. I don't even remember what the dream was about, just that I was terrified. She picked me up, walked me to the river, and held me in her arms. She hummed that tune, and I remember falling asleep against her shoulder while the water lapped softly at her feet.
I felt like nothing in the world could ever touch me as long as she was near.
That was the last time I felt that way.
People think I was born fearless. That I stood taller than all the other people of my peers because I had no doubts.
They see the warrior, the vow, the title. They don't see the child who wanted by the river every evening, whispering to the wind.
Sometimes I still whisper her name.
I don't even know why anymore.
Maybe I still think the wind would carry it back to her.
Maybe I just don't want to forget how it feels on my tongue the name
Ganga.
But to me, she was just "ma."
I have seen Kings fall and empires rise. I have seen blood spill across the battlefields like rain. I have made choices that hunted me, stood in silence when I should have screamed.
But nothing cuts deeper than that quiet Goodbye on the riverbank.
I don't blame her. Not anymore.
I used to. For years, I carried that bitterness like a stone in my chest. I blamed her for walking away, for leaving me behind with a father who loved me but never truly saw me.
But now… now I wonder what it cost her.
What it felt like to leave.
Maybe she thought she was doing the right thing.
Maybe she thought I'd be better off in this world without her.
Or maybe the world never really gave her a choice.
I don't know what happens after death.
Krishna says there are other realms, other lives, other rivers.
Maybe I'll see her again.
Maybe she'll be waiting.
Maybe this time, she won't walk away.
Maybe I'll finally ask the questions I never dared to ask.
Why did you leave?
Have you ever thought of me?
Were you proud of the man I became?
Did you love me, even as you let go?
The wind rises again, brushing past the blood on my lips, curling around my broken armor.
It almost sounds like her voice.
And I let myself believe it, just for a moment.
Just long enough to feel like a child again.
To be continued…