Week 7 Story: The Underdog

You’re weak.

Girls can’t fight.

You would make a good housewife, nothing more.

Everyone in this kingdom knows the prophecy, knows why I was born. It is common knowledge, but no one really cares. The men in this town make it difficult for me to work towards fulfilling my purpose. I can’t do any sort of training or practicing because they constantly torment and degrade me. They call me names and taunt me. All of this solely because I was born a woman. If the townspeople treat me this way, there’s no way I would have the respect from any of the kingdom’s soldiers, even if my father is the king. But I need to do this. I need to fight this war to honor myself and avenge my past self. I have no other choice.

So that’s why I snuck into the camp disguised as a warrior. I train with the others warriors. I eat with them. I talk with them too. All normal stuff, except I’m careful to avoid certain things, especially if it means having others’ attention on me. If they look too closely, I am afraid they would figure me out. I am also careful to avoid Dhrishtadyumna. He’s horrible at keeping his mouth shut, so as long as he doesn’t know I am here, then I’m safe for now. No one suspects a thing. And, they all treat me like one of them. That part of the plan was the only thing going for me though. Training was rough at first. Well, that’s a bit of an understatement. Training was brutal. I thought I could handle it because sparring with Dhrishtadyumna back home was fun and exhilarating, even if it was a challenge. But this is next level tough. Eventually, we got down to business and I was whipped into shape in no time. I became a true warrior, igniting a fire from within that I knew was deep inside all along.

I did so well keeping my identity a secret at the camp that in hindsight I should have seen this coming. Day 1 of the war, Bhishma recognized me and revealed my identity to everyone. The generals spared my life, but I was still sent away from the battlegrounds and forbidden from ever coming back. However, it was the tenth day of battle that my superiors realized they needed me. I had said so all along, my father had said so as well, but it was when they were desperate to defeat Bhishma that they realized how essential I was to this war’s outcome. Only I could kill the man standing in our way from victory. And I succeeded, fulfilling my life’s purpose to honor Amba. After, the war was won in no time.

Bhishma Meets Shikhandin: Wikimedia Commons

Author's Note: I felt like there was a lot of build up to Amba’s new life as Shikhandin in the beginning of the Mahabharata, but the outcome was so anticlimactic. There were two stories about Shikhandin in the second half of the epic: when he kills Bhishma in Tiny Tale 141 and when he dies in Tiny Tale 171. It was such a subpar ending to a plot point that I thought had a lot of potential. So, I wanted to create a story from Shikhandin’s point of view leading up to his purpose and what he was destined to do. I wanted to do his story some justice. When I was thinking of a starting point for my story, one thought kept popping up in my mind: this story is kind of similar to Mulan. So, my story was very loosely based on the plot of Disney's Mulan.

Bibliography: Tiny Tales from the Mahabharata by Laura Gibbs

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