Rukmini was the princess of Vidarbha, and she had heard about Krishna. In the way that information travels in a world of royal courts and travelling scholars and merchants who carry news with their goods, the stories of the prince of Dwarka had reached her — the beauty, the intelligence, the extraordinary nature that made beings who encountered him feel they had found something they had been missing without knowing they were missing it.
She made her decision: this was the man she would marry. In the tradition of women who know their minds, she committed to the decision completely and then went to work on its execution. Her brother Rukmi had other plans — he had arranged her marriage to Shishupala, a king of considerable power who had his own complicated history with Krishna. The wedding date was set. The preparations were underway.
Rukmini sent a letter to Krishna. She sent it with a trusted brahmin messenger, and the letter was everything the situation required: it explained who she was, described her decision, explained the constraints, and made her request directly and without embellishment. Come. Abduct me before the wedding if you must — abduction before a svayamvar is an accepted kshatriya practice, she noted, citing the relevant tradition with the composure of someone who has done her research. Come tomorrow. I will be going to the Goddess’s temple before the ceremony. That is the window.
She then described what would happen if he didn’t come: she would fast until she died. Not a threat — a statement of what seemed to her like the only alternative. A woman who had decided on the basis of everything she knew and felt that this was the right marriage, and for whom any other marriage was not a marriage she was willing to enter.
Krishna received the letter and did what he always did with complete requests from complete people: he went.
He arrived in Vidarbha with the quiet efficiency of someone who has planned an elopement before. He reached the temple as Rukmini was emerging from her prayers. She saw him. He saw her. The look exchanged between them — the recognition that had preceded the meeting, the knowledge that this was real — is described with restraint in the texts, which is more effective than description.
He picked her up, placed her in his chariot, and drove.
The armies of Shishupala and her brother Rukmi gave chase. There was a significant battle. The battle went in Krishna’s favour because the battles that Krishna enters in the right cause tend to go that way. Rukmi was defeated but not killed — on Rukmini’s pleading, her brother was spared, though humiliated.
They married in Dwarka. Rukmini became his principal wife, the one called Lakshmi incarnate, the queen of Dwarka. From her Krishna had several sons, and the household they made had the quality of all the households that appear in the tradition as models: joyful, purposeful, full of the particular warmth of people who chose each other correctly.
The letter that Rukmini sent has been read and discussed for centuries as a model of how to ask for what you want. It is specific. It is honest about constraints. It treats the recipient as an intelligent adult. It assumes that what is being asked for is possible. It states the consequence of refusal without drama.
And it was answered. The letter was answered because it was sent. A woman in Vidarbha with no certainty that her message would reach, no guarantee that the man she wrote to would respond, no option but to try — she sent the letter.
He came. This is the whole story: she asked and he came. Sometimes that is what love is. The asking and the coming.