Only a couple of days passed before fate brought them together for the third time.
This time, it happened at the temple.
The Pandavas had gone there after their morning bath in the temple kund, still dressed in the simple clothes they wore as Brahmins, when they noticed an unusual gathering near the entrance. Several attendants were carrying something toward the inner courtyard, while more men followed behind them. At first, Arjuna assumed it was some ceremonial object being brought for worship, but then he saw the shape beneath the cloth and immediately understood what it was.
A bow.
Not an ordinary bow.
The weapon had been brought to the temple so that Mahadeva could bless it before it was used in the Swayamvara. Even beneath the cloth, its enormous size was obvious. More than four men were needed merely to carry it, and it had to be placed on a specially prepared cart before being taken inside. The sight naturally drew the attention of everyone nearby, including the Pandavas.
Bhima looked at it with particular interest.
"That is quite a bow," he said quietly.
Arjuna's eyes remained on it.
He could not help himself.
The familiarity of the weapon, its weight, its balance and even the manner in which the attendants handled it were immediately apparent to him. He had spent most of his life around bows. A weapon did not become merely an object because he was dressed as a Brahmin. His hands remembered things his disguise could not erase.
The ritual itself proceeded peacefully.
Priests performed the necessary worship, offered flowers and sacred substances, recited the mantras, and sought Mahadeva's blessing for the weapon that would soon determine the outcome of the Swayamvara. Draupadi was present as well, though she remained among the royal attendants rather than taking part directly in the ritual.
At one point, her eyes moved across the temple courtyard.
They found Arjuna.
For a brief moment, the memory of their previous meetings returned to her. The young Brahmin who had caught her attention at the Annadhaan. The same man who had taken control of her frightened chariot horse. Arindama.
She looked away before anyone noticed.
After the ritual was completed, the attendants began carrying the bow back toward the cart.
That was when something went wrong.
As the bow was being placed back onto the cart, one of the supports suddenly slipped.
The enormous weapon shifted.
The cart began rolling forward.
The attendants shouted and rushed toward it, but the weight of the bow made the situation dangerous. If the cart moved too far, the bow would fall, and anyone standing nearby could easily be crushed beneath it.
Bhima reacted first.
He stepped forward and seized the cart.
The wheels continued moving for a moment, but Bhima's arms tightened and his feet dug into the ground. With sheer physical strength, he brought the cart to a halt.
At almost the same instant, the bow slipped from its position.
Arjuna moved.
His hands caught the weapon before it could strike the ground.
For a moment, the enormous bow rested in his hands.
Then, almost without thinking, Arjuna lifted it.
The movement was natural.
There was no visible struggle, no awkward adjustment, no hesitation. He simply raised the bow, brought it close to his face and touched it lightly to his eyes in a gesture of reverence, as though greeting a weapon that deserved respect.
Then he carefully placed it back on the cart.
Only afterward did he seem to realize that several people had witnessed what he had done.
Bhima looked at him.
Arjuna looked back.
Neither needed to say anything.
They both knew that perhaps Arjuna had shown too much.
Draupadi had certainly noticed.
She approached them after the attendants had secured the bow.
"Thank you," she said.
Her gaze remained on Arjuna.
This time, however, there was curiosity behind it.
"You seem very familiar with bows."
Arjuna remained quiet.
Draupadi continued, "The way you caught it, lifted it, and placed it back. It seemed very natural to you. For someone who lives as a Brahmin, it is unusual to handle a weapon like that."
Arjuna understood the danger in the question.
He could not tell her the truth.
So he gave the only answer he safely could.
"I have some familiarity with weapons."
It was vague enough to reveal nothing.
But it was also not entirely a lie.
Draupadi studied him for another moment.
She seemed to want to ask more, yet finally decided against it.
"Then you have helped me again."
She gave a small gesture to the attendants.
A servant came forward carrying a small container of gold coins.
"Please accept this."
Arjuna accepted the reward.
Bhima had been standing beside him throughout the exchange.
He had intended to speak.
He had wanted to say something when Draupadi first approached them, but somehow nothing came. He was usually not a man who struggled to speak, yet in the presence of the princess he found himself unusually quiet.
Perhaps it was simply because of her beauty.
Perhaps it was because she seemed different from the royal women he had known.
Or perhaps it was because there was something in the way she treated even unknown Brahmins that made it difficult to think of her merely as a princess.
Draupadi turned away.
Her attendants followed as she entered her palanquin.
The palanquin slowly moved away from the temple.
Bhima watched it disappear.
Then, unable to keep the thought to himself any longer, he said quietly, "The princess is beautiful not only from the outside. She seems to have a beautiful heart as well."
Arjuna did not answer.
His eyes remained fixed upon the palanquin until it vanished beyond the temple entrance.
Only then did he look away.
Neither brother realized how deeply those three encounters had already begun to affect the princess.
Draupadi herself did not understand it.
She had met Arindama only three times.
Three brief meetings.
Yet his face had begun to remain in her thoughts long after he had disappeared from her sight.
At first, she simply remembered him.
She remembered the way he had looked at her in the temple during the Annadhaan. She remembered his calm expression when he took control of her chariot. She remembered the third meeting, when he had caught the great bow and lifted it with such effortless familiarity.
She remembered his eyes most of all.
One evening, without really knowing why, she sat before a sheet of parchment.
Her hand began moving.
She sketched the shape of a face.
At first, she told herself it was nothing.
Then she realized whose face she was drawing.
Arindama.
She stopped for a moment.
She looked at the unfinished drawing.
Then she continued.
When she finally finished, she stared at it for a long time.
It was not perfect. A drawing could not reproduce everything she remembered, particularly the expression in his eyes, but it was unmistakably him.
She wondered where he was.
The thought came naturally now.
*Where is he?*
She began noticing him without actually seeing him.
Whenever she went outside the palace, some part of her attention would unconsciously search the streets. If she saw a group of Brahmins, her eyes would move among them. If she passed the temple, she would remember their first meeting. If she saw a chariot moving through the city, she would think of the day he had saved her.
She never deliberately decided to look for him.
She simply found herself doing it.
And then her thoughts went somewhere even more dangerous.
She began imagining what life would be like if she could somehow marry him.
The thought embarrassed her.
She would sometimes stop herself almost immediately.
*Why am I thinking like this?*
Her father had announced her Swayamvara.
Princes and kings would soon arrive from powerful kingdoms. Men of royal blood would stand before her, each hoping to win her hand.
And yet she was thinking about a Brahmin.
A poor Brahmin.
That was the part that hurt.
Draupadi knew her father.
She knew what kind of marriage he would accept for his daughter. Drupada might allow her to choose her husband through a Swayamvara, but that did not mean he would accept every possible choice. A princess of Dakshina Panchala marrying an unknown Brahmin without lineage, wealth, or political standing was something her father would almost certainly reject.
She lowered her eyes toward the painting.
For a moment, she allowed herself to imagine another possibility.
*If only he were a Kshatriya.*
Her heart immediately followed the thought.
*If only he came from a royal family.*
Then everything would have been different.
She could have spoken about him openly. Her father could have considered him. She could have wondered about him without feeling that she was entertaining an impossible dream.
But he was Arindama.
A Brahmin living in hiding.
And she was Draupadi, princess of Dakshina Panchala.
The distance between them seemed enormous.
She slowly placed the painting aside.
Yet even after she did so, she could not bring herself to put it away.
For reasons she could not explain, she kept it beside her.