The Emperor’s Dice.

In the echoing marble chambers of afterlife bureaucracy—somewhere between Svarga’s audit office and Naraka’s redemption kiosk—sat Yudhishthira, former emperor, gambler, exile, king, penitent. Clad in righteous white, he folded his hands politely before an obsidian desk where the Deva of Dice now leaned lazily, eyes glinting with amusement, one six-sided cube between his fingers.

“So,” murmured the god, flipping the dice across his knuckles, “shall we review your case?”

Yudhishthira, ever the polite litigant of virtue, nodded solemnly. “If dharma requires it.”

“Ah, dharma.” The god chuckled, eyes twinkling. “You’ve said that word more times than you said your wife’s name.” He lifted a scroll. “Let’s start with the basics. Gambling away your brothers? Your wife? Yourself?”

“Duty,” Yudhishthira replied reflexively. “A king must uphold the rules of the court. I was bound by honor—”

“You were bound by thrill,” came a voice from behind his eyes.

Kālakuṭi Kōkilā shimmered into view—a serpentine silhouette wrapped in blue-black silk, her voice a hush between poison and prayer. She was not here to accuse. She was always there—she was him.

“You wanted power, Yudhishthira,” she said gently, circling him. “You gambled because you feared choice. Dice absolved you of agency. Every loss was a curtain behind which you hid your hunger.”

He flinched. “I stood for dharma—”

“You stood for approval, cloaked as dharma,” she whispered. “Even your renunciation was performative. You longed to rule even as you claimed to relinquish. You did not walk north to escape the throne—you walked to preserve your legacy.”

The dice god raised an eyebrow. “Well, that’s new. Most applicants don’t psychoanalyze themselves mid-judgment.”

From the corner, seated atop a pile of unclaimed moral verdicts, Vidhūṣaka let out a theatrical yawn. “Everyone remembers Draupadī dragged into the court,” he said with a lazy grin. “But no one remembers the silent nod—the one our dharmic darling gave when asked if she was property.” He leaned forward. “He didn’t say yes. He didn’t say no. He left it to fate. Another gamble. Classic.”

Yudhishthira looked wounded. “I followed code. I upheld the law.”

“And the law, dear king,” Kālakuṭi purred, “was your escape hatch. You didn’t want to choose. You wanted rules to choose for you. Each verdict you delivered with trembling lips was a bet: Will the court accept it? Will history forgive it?”

Vidhūṣaka pulled a scroll from somewhere unsanctioned. “The list of righteous declarations that were actually dice rolls includes:

• Declaring Draupadī married to five brothers—high risk, high reward.
• Asserting that Karṇa was a sutaputra even after knowing his truth? Strategic.
• The Ashwamedha sacrifice? Oh please, that was branding.”

Yudhishthira’s voice was barely a breath now. “I only wanted peace. Order.”

“You wanted control,” Kālakuṭi corrected. “But wrapped it in robes and Vedic hymns. Every time someone suffered for your dharma, you tightened the fabric over your eyes.”

The god of dice cleared his throat. “Well. This is an unusual confession ritual. Do go on.”

“Even the path to Himalayas,” Kālakuṭi said, “you walked not as one who renounced, but as one who wanted the myth of renunciation. A legacy of righteousness. You gambled your name onto the winds of eternity.”

“And so,” Vidhūṣaka concluded with mock solemnity, “here lies Yudhishthira: King of Dice, Patron Saint of Moral Loopholes. His greatest gamble wasn’t at the table. It was in every conversation where he passed off ambition as virtue and prayed that no one noticed.”

The dice god smiled and finally dropped the cube. It landed silently—neither odd nor even. Just blank.

“Interesting,” he said. “Let’s call it a draw. Proceed to your next incarnation—preferably one where you learn to say what you want, not what you think the heavens will approve.”

As Yudhishthira rose, shedding his crown like dandruff from history’s shoulders, Kālakuṭi faded—but not entirely. She remained as a hum beneath his next breath, his next choice, his next gamble.

After all, dharma can’t roll the dice.
But men like Yudhishthira always will.