Story: Love-Driven Sister

It’s a funny thing having a brother that on any given day just might not like the way you look at him and then decide to kill you. The crazier thing is that the person my brother had told me to kill this time was the love of my life. Once Hidimba smelled human flesh somewhere in the forest he tasked me with the job of finding and bringing him back this wonderful aroma to eat. However, once I arrived I found five sleeping humans and one man that I could not turn my eyes from. At this moment I knew I wanted this man to be my husband. I would not be able to complete this task for my brother.

I had to warn him quickly if I was going to save him. As I got closer to this man I knew that for me to have any chance in convincing him to leave I must transform into a beautiful woman. Once I approached this hulk of a man I was hoping that the sheer sight of me would make him want to leave and run for the hills with me as his wife. However, this was not the case as I hoped it would be. Once I got close enough he introduced himself as Bhima.

As I tried to get Bhima to just leave me and abandon these people that were with him he stopped me with a powerful booming voice proclaiming, "I will not leave my family behind!" I pleaded with him again that if he wouldn’t wake up his mother and brethren that they would become my brother’s food for the night, but this mighty man didn’t listen to me. He claimed that he would not wake his family because he wasn't afraid of rakshasas or of my chieftain brother. With pride Bhima said,"Look at me! I have the arms of oxen, legs of mighty trees, and the strength of a thousand men. Do you really think I am afraid of your brother? I will not be the one to be slain tonight but your brother will if he wishes to make this a challenge!"

Hidimba all the while had been listening from afar getting more and more impatient with the passing time. Once he had heard Bhima boast about killing him he was engulfed in rage and began his charge toward Bhima. As soon as he arrived he looked straight at me with his rage-inflamed eye and screamed, “Oh sister, since you want to disguise yourself as a human you will die with these humans!” Then he rushed me like a bull with intent to kill me where I stood before moving on to the others.

However, Bhima quick on his feet intercepted my brother and his attempt to slay me. In all reality I was so frozen with fear of my brother it would have been nothing for him to defeat me right then and there, but luckily Bhima wasn’t scared of Hidimba at all. Bhima cried, “You will not attack a woman whenever I am around! On this nightfall your sister will witness your death by way of a one on one battle!”

Hidimba responded, “I will destroy you first, Bhima! Then one by one your family will fall, until finally I will slay my betraying sister!”

I was honestly relieved that Bhima had challenged my brother to combat, but I thought to myself, "If Bhima loses to my brother I am dead meat!"

Once the fight commenced it was like witnessing waves crashing against each other, with each punch acting like lightning striking the ground. Through all of this wrestling trees had been dislodged from the ground and rocks had been split as if an earthquake had happened.

As time passed the fight progressed to eventually wake up Bhima's brethren to rush to his aid. As I watched from afar I could hear one of the brothers yell out to Bhima to not play with this beast anymore and finish the job.

Bhima responded, “Do not fret, brother! This monster will not be able to escape my grips!”

“Brother, please hurry! The strength of rakshasas becomes much stronger when they are in the daylight, and that time is almost upon us!”

As I was watching Bhima respond to his brother's words it was like a switch turned on in his head. He lifted my brother high above his head and with the power of a thousand men brought him back down to the middle of his knee. That being the final blow of the battle. Bhima had broken my brother’s back.

I finally felt free from the evil of my brother thanks to Bhima. Now the only thing I have to do is try to get him to become my husband...

Source: Bhima fights with Hidimba

Author’s note: The source for most of this story is from PDE Mahabharata: Bhima and Hidimba. I wanted to retell this story because it has been one of my favorites I have read in this class up to this date. I told the story back from the sister’s point of view because I think it would have been a very confusing thing to watch the person you love and your brother fight it out. Also I tried to capture what the sister must be feeling throughout the story. I’m not too sure if I was able to capture how she felt as well as I wanted to so this could be a possible revision point I can work on this next week. I would want to add more detail to the fighting scene but I didn’t have enough room to place what I wanted. Overall I will want to go back and add a lot more detail to the story as a whole. There is room for me to be able to make it more descriptive. 
I went back through on revisions and added a few extra lines of dialogue that added some description to the story. I also went through and made a few changes that I think helped the story flow a little better.