I Disguised Myself as a Holy Man to Steal My Best Friend's Sister

The saffron cloth scratched at his throat, but Arjun kept his hands folded in his lap, the posture of a man at peace. He sat beneath a banyan tree on the southern edge of Dwarka, where the city’s gardens thinned into wild grass and the sea wind carried the scent of salt and blooming champa. From here, he could see the white walls of the palace rising above the terraces, and sometimes—if he sat long enough, if he stared hard enough—a flash of movement at a high window. A woman’s arm. A dark braid. Nothing more.

He had been in the city for three days. Three days of silence, of alms, of bowing his head to merchants and children who offered him fruit and asked for blessings he could not give. Three days of pretending not to know the names of the streets, the turns of the alleys, the way the temple steps warmed underfoot by midday. He had lived here once, briefly, years ago, when Krishna had first brought him home from the forests of Hastinapur. He had laughed with Balarama, drunk wine with Satyabhama, and watched Subhadra walk barefoot across the courtyard, her anklets ringing like rain. She had been younger then, barely past girlhood, but even then her voice had lodged itself in his chest like a splinter. Low, deliberate, amused. She had asked him if he knew how to string a bow left-handed. He had said yes. She had smiled. That was all.

Now he was supposed to be a stranger.

He closed his eyes, letting his breath slow, letting the city settle into the rhythm of his pretending. A beetle crawled across his foot. He did not move. A group of women passed, carrying baskets of marigold, their laughter bright and sharp. One of them glanced at him, curious. He kept his gaze lowered. He had grown his beard long, oiled his skin with ash, let his hair tangle into matted ropes. He smelled of smoke and salt and old cloth. He looked the part. But inside, he was burning.

At night, he lay beneath the stars and replayed every moment he had ever stood near her. The way she had held a lotus in her fingers, spinning it slowly, as if testing its weight. The way her eyes had flicked to his mouth when he spoke of war, of horses, of exile. The way she had once brushed past him in a corridor, her shoulder bare, her scent—sandalwood and sweat—clinging to his skin for hours after. He had not touched her. He had not dared. But he had wanted to. God, he had wanted to.

Now he was here, disguised as a man who wanted nothing.

A shadow fell across his folded knees. Arjun did not look up; he had felt the approach before he saw it, the way the air rearranged itself when Krishna was near. The footsteps were soft, deliberate, the gait of a man who already knew every answer to the questions he had not yet asked.

“Still seeking moksha, Partha?” Krishna’s voice was low, amused. “Or just the corner of a palace wall that catches the afternoon sun?”

Arjun lifted his head. Krishna stood barefoot in the dust, his yellow silk bright against the garden’s greens, a garland of wild tulasi wilting around his neck. His eyes—those impossible eyes—were fixed on the high window Arjun had been watching for three days.

“I take what alms the city gives,” Arjun said. The lie sat dry on his tongue.

Krishna smiled, the same smile that had once talked him into gambling away his kingdom, his brothers, his wife. He lowered himself to the ground, cross-legged, close enough that their knees almost touched. A butterfly landed on his shoulder, wings flickering like a heartbeat.

“The Raivata fast approaches,” he said, plucking a blade of grass, twirling it between finger and thumb. “Seven nights of music, of lamps floated on the sea. Balarama intends to outdo the gods themselves. Already the goldsmiths work past midnight.”

Arjun nodded. He had heard the hammers, seen the carts of silk arriving at the gates.

“And Subhadra,” Krishna continued, voice still light, “will lead the procession to the mountain shrine. My brother thinks it time she took a husband. He has written to Hastinapur.”

The grass blade snapped. Krishna flicked it away.

“Duryodhana arrives with a hundred horses, a thousand swords. A generous bride-price. Balarama counts the coins aloud.”

The words struck like a fist beneath the ribs. Arjun’s spine straightened; the ascetic mask slipped before he could catch it. He saw her—Subhadra—painted in turmeric, draped in red, her hand placed into Duryodhana’s thick-fingered grip. He saw the Sindhu coast, the Kuru banners snapping in the wind. He saw himself still wearing these rags, still pretending, while she rode away.

Krishna watched the color drain from his face, the pulse leap at his throat.

“Of course,” he went on, almost gentle, “a sanyasi has no stake in such matters. You will observe from the hillside, eyes downcast, begging bowl in hand. The city will praise your detachment.”

Arjun’s hands had curled into fists; the knuckles showed white beneath the ash. He forced them open, palms up, the gesture of surrender. The scent of champa drifted between them, sweet, unbearable.

Krishna rose, brushing dust from his silk. “Come to the festival,” he said. “Watch. Perhaps the gods will speak.”

He turned, already walking back toward the walls, the palace, the rooms where Subhadra moved unseen. Over his shoulder he added, so softly Arjun almost missed it, “Or perhaps you will.”

Arjun sat motionless long after Krishna’s footsteps had faded, the dust settling again into the grooves of his palms. The sun slid lower, bleeding orange across the sea, and still he did not move. Inside his chest something vast and heavy shifted, like a boulder rolling downhill—slow, inevitable, crushing everything in its path. He could not challenge Balarama. He could not stand in the pillared hall and declare himself a suitor, could not offer horses or gold or the weight of his father’s name. He had given up those rights on a riverbank years ago, when he had sworn to wander until the twelfth year. A sanyasi owned nothing, wanted nothing. The vow had been a convenience once; now it was a cage.

He pressed his forehead to the rough bark of the banyan and felt the bark bite skin. The pain was small, clean, useless. If he burst into the palace tomorrow and tore off his beard, Balarama would laugh—then summon the guards. If he begged, he would be thrown out like any other madman. And Krishna—Krishna would stand aside, smiling that same unreadable smile, letting the dice fall where they would. Friendship did not override dharma; Krishna had taught him that lesson long ago on a different battlefield.

A mongoose darted past his foot, tail flicking. Arjun watched it disappear into the grass and felt envy spike through him: the animal answered to no law, owed no allegiance, carried no burning image of a woman’s wrist sliding out of a window. He tried to speak the prohibition aloud, to give the helplessness a shape. “I am only a beggar,” he whispered, testing the words. They tasted of iron and smoke. A beggar who had once split a fish-eye with an arrow at twelve paces, who had shared a bed with kings, who could string a bow that five men together could not bend. A beggar whose mouth went dry at the memory of Subhadra’s laughter curling around his name.

Night crept in, bringing with it the first lamps from the city walls. Music drifted across the gardens—practising drummers, a veena being tuned. The festival was already beginning in the hands of artisans and cooks. Soon the streets would fill with silk and perfume, and she would walk them crowned in jasmine, her palm pressed into another man’s. Arjun’s fingers closed around empty air. He could not claim her; he could not even speak to her. All that remained was the single thread Krishna had dangled: come and watch.

He lifted his head. The moon had risen, a thin blade above the palms. Somewhere in the palace Subhadra would be bathing, oiling her hair, unaware that her future husband’s chariot rattled closer with every hour. Arjun stood, knees stiff, and brushed the dust from his saffron robe. The cloth felt suddenly lighter, as if it had already begun to burn away from his skin. He would go to Raivata. He would stand at the edge of the torchlight, bowl in hand, eyes lowered—exactly as Krishna had invited. And he would see, with the clarity of a man who has nothing left to lose, what the gods, or the silence, would dare to say.