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The Great Epics

The Cloth That Would Not Run Out

A woman is dragged into a hall of kings to be humiliated in front of everyone. Every man present who could stop it chooses not to.

Every man in that hall who could have stopped it decided not to. What answered instead was a piece of cloth that would not end.

How she came to be a stake

The hall had been full since morning. Kings and princes from allied territories had come as witnesses.

It began as a ceremonial game between cousins. And hour by hour it had curdled into something else.

Yudhishthira had lost everything by then, wealth, kingdom, his brothers' freedom, and finally his own. He was playing against Shakuni, with dice Shakuni did not lose with.

And then, with nothing of his own left, he staked Draupadi, and lost her too.

A ripple went through the hall the moment the stake was named. Several kings shifted in their seats. None of them said anything.

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