The Battle of the Vitasta
While textualizing history
(now after nearly 24 centuries)
Of the Battle of the ‘Vitasta,’ or ‘Hydaspes’
Or the Jhelum (a name now common),
There’s bound to be some swerve,
Which is how (according to Bloom)
Poetry is born—
Now that there are claims and counter-claims:
Alexander conquered India,
(by courtesy of Arrian);
No, he fled, a hypothesis
As advanced, notably by Zhukov
(Who, it is claimed, would know
A fleeing force if he saw one).
How did Zhukov happen to see
Alexander's army fleeing?
GOK!
But this is not an attempt to romanticize the battle,
Glorifying either Alexander and his Bucephalus
Or King Porus and his valiant elephant.
Now, if we go by Arrian, what’s the bottom line?
You were wounded, King Porus,
But it did not matter to you in the least;
But your elephant was killed,
Which decided the end of the great battle.
You fought fiercely— till the end.
So did your men,
But only until you collapsed.
Then they started fleeing
As would any troop in those times—
In the circumstances.
And they were chased by the Greek garrison (in reserve)
That joined from across the Jhelum—
A neat plan that Alexander had thought out
And it worked.
Alas, for want of a rider,… the battle was lost!
Come to think of it,
Yours after all was a top-down system,
As was any such system (Alexander’s included),
Until modern times, which would collapse,
Like a quake-hit city,
When the leader falls.
But that was not the end of the story.
The best is yet to be, as we know.
For you, Porus, it was dignity even in defeat.
And Alexander happened to be
The truest friend and noblest foe.
You, now in chains, asked to be treated as a King.
So, you were reinstated and made the Satrap
(the Governor of the Greek Dominon).
The lesson (or one of the lessons)
that we have learnt from your battle,
King Porus, is this:
Any good team should have a Second-in-command!
***
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