Soon the chariot begins to descend and we land in a massive green plain outlined with dense forests. My father's world is absolutely gorgeous. It is full of lush greenery and beautiful skies. Matali leads me through the plains and informs me that we are heading through Nandana Grove in order to meet with my father.
Nandana Grove is one the most spectacular places my eyes had laid upon. There is lush greenery, and giant ripening fruits in surplus hanging from the large bountiful trees. The grove feels fresh and alive, yet still have great harmony with the many historic relics in honor of Indra and the ancient atmosphere.
Matali tells me that the beautiful women made of clouds and water are called apsaras. They are some of the most elegant women I have ever seen. They dance and sing in such mesmerizing manner, my senses begin to tingle as I intently watch a ceremonial dance in honor of my father deep in the grove. Throughout the grove also live large hybrid males that resemble both a horse and bird. The all possessed large bird beaks and the four legs of a horse. Matali tells me that they are called gandharvas. They too are quite elegant and dance and sing with as much dexterity as their female counterparts.
Matali notices my interest in the deities as we navigate through the grove and tells me that they often visit the palace of Lord Indra and perform many performances in his court.
Soon we reach my father's palace. It it one of the most beautiful creations I have ever seen, larger and grandiose then I could ever imagine, the gold and silver hues of the palace reflect my father's powers and truly makes me shiver upon seeing it. Matali leads me through the palace and into a grand hall where two massive beautiful thrones sit adjacent to each other. In the right throne sits my father's beautiful queen Indrani. No apsaras' beauty compares to that of my father's wife. She is truly one of the most beautiful women I have seen as befits of somebody as noble as my father. Behind her sits my father's elephant beautiful, white elephant Airaveata. It too gazes intently at me from behind the two thrones and radiates a celestial power. My father sits in the grand throne next to Indrani and his power also radiates throughout the grandiose room. His gold hue shines and as I look into his eyes I can see the fiercest storm I could ever imagine.
My father speaks with such presence the whole room's attention focuses onto him. He explains to me that I have a grand destiny awaiting me. Now I know that I have been called here for a true purpose.
Author's Note: Arjuna is my favorite character in the Mahabatra and I enjoyed telling a story from his point of view last week that I thought I would do it again. It was really easy for me to write a story through his eyes since I was struggling with character development and bringing my characters to life. I decided to take Dr. Gibbs' advice and use characters that were already established and it has proven to fare much better for me. In this part of the story I have chosen to recount Arjuna's journey I decided to detail his initial arrival to Indra's heaven and put my own twist on the details. I kept the general idea of the story very similar. I just outlined what Arjuna would be experiencing firsthand while entering his father's great realm for the first time. I felt that Indra's heaven would be a very grandiose place and wanted to have the opportunity to use my creativity and fabricate some of the details of Amaravati. The aspect of Nandana's grove and the Gandharvas living there really intrigued me and getting to do some research on that in order to retell it properly was a nice addition in process of writing this story.
Bibliography:
Narayan, R. K. (1978). The Mahabharata
