Second
thoughts on
DURYODHAN
and the kauravas
last modified 20110327_1328gmt
Long
time back I remember the doordarshan's national channel telecasting a
serial “bharath
ek khoj” based on jawaharlal's discovery of india. I
dont remember much of the details for it was ages back. But one scene
is still fresh in my mind - that of gandhari visiting her eldest son
duryodhan in his death bed in the battle field. That scene has got
permanently etched in my mind. The rapport between the mother and son
one can never forget. Of
course it was om puri one of the finest character actors in indian
cinema who was doing duryodhana - shorry; i dont remember who did gandhari.
Looking
back I feel duryodhan is one of the most maligned characters of the
mahabharata – obviously,
for he was fighting the hindu gods! The most likely
scenario is that these were the real life happenings of yonder years
and history is always what is dictated by the victor.
“ Deepa
sthambham mahashcharyam
namukkum
kittanam panam “
has
been the watchword of all professional writers throughout the ages.
My
knowledge of the scriptures is very limited. The main source of this
limited knowledge is the series of stories I have listened to as a
child as told by my paternal grandfather. We used to have story
telling sessions almost daily – I will pull a stool into the space
between the foot supports of granpa's easy chair and start pestering him " granpa,
please tell me a story” and the old man will almost always oblige. My
grandfather was an excellant story teller – he will act it out, add
exaggerations of his own and make it real enjoyable. He was a
religious hindu and of course his descriptions were never critical of
the gods – on the contrary.
I feel a lot of injustice has been done to the kouravas in
general and duryodhan in particular in the epic. may be or could be I
am wrong; all the same here are some of the points I want to high
light.
Do you think all those great gurus and even the pithamaha would have fought on the side of the “unjust” kouravas in a dharmayudha, whatever be the other compulsions ?
Do you think all those great gurus and even the pithamaha would have fought on the side of the “unjust” kouravas in a dharmayudha, whatever be the other compulsions ?
Balaram did not take part in the war at
all – that is because he dots on his younger brother and would never want
to fight him; otherwise he would definitely have fought on the side
of the kouravas it looks.
And we would have had in our hands at least one pandava less unless the machiavellian
cunning krishna had stopped his elder brother who was
bent on finishing off bhima on seeing the treachery done to
his favourite disciple duryodhana.
Again,
is it not childish not to accept the defeat sportingly in the game of
dice rather than claim that they were defeated by trickery which is more becoming of a child under ten !
Now
coming to the individuals - can you even in your wildest of
imaginations visualise duryodhan pawning bhanumathi in a game of dice
? If my hunch is right friend duryodhan will cut his own throat
rather than do such an ignoble thing. only a pandava can do it.
And
isn't it disgusting the elder yudhishtira and sahadeva taking turns
on the same woman! Has polyandry been an accepted norm in any civilized society ? Can you
describe this woman as the mythical dharam pathni by any stretch of
imagination.
I
remember reading long back in a malayalam periodical a story –
karan and bhanumathi had an argument on the game of chess they were
playing; neither of the two were in any mood to give in and the situation
got aggravated. and it was when the quarrel reached the pushing and
shoving stage that king duryodhan walked in.
The
mischief mongers were a bit embarrassed; but the king was unperturbed
– duryodhan knows his friend and his wife and will never entertain
“that sort of doubts” about them. Namboori
had drawn a funny cartoon there ( of course it is his enemy party )
which I did not appreciate at all .
On
the other side you have five brothers sharing the same woman and one
of them being penalised when he made a wrong entry – peeped
into her bedroom while yudhishtira was doing her ? I dont remember
exactly. And the funny system of you keeping your
footwear outside the bed room to let your brothers know that the
place has been taken; Yuck! And the
epitome of fraternal affection was Bhim trying to strangle
his weakling elder brother for letting droupadi insulted.
Duryodhan I feel was at his finest when he crowned karan the angaraja. Karan, the great warrior, insulted and jeered at because of the soorya puthra's so called low birth, was on the spot raised to the rank of kings.
Who else but a duryodhan could have the guts, the audacity, to perform such an act in those mythical days! dont you think duryodhan ought to be celebrated as the first real revolutionary of our ancient history ?
by the way have you noticed it – sensible indians name their son karan and not arjun; westerners christen their child hector and not achilles for that matter.
Duryodhan I feel was at his finest when he crowned karan the angaraja. Karan, the great warrior, insulted and jeered at because of the soorya puthra's so called low birth, was on the spot raised to the rank of kings.
Who else but a duryodhan could have the guts, the audacity, to perform such an act in those mythical days! dont you think duryodhan ought to be celebrated as the first real revolutionary of our ancient history ?
by the way have you noticed it – sensible indians name their son karan and not arjun; westerners christen their child hector and not achilles for that matter.
I
feel there should be a re-thinking on the whole matter and justice
done to the vanquished as well.
* * * * *
now
the knight's move
"halki si muskan"
sapnom ki duniya aabaad karnevali vo
halki si muskan ?
halki si muskan ?
jee; mujhe yaad hai.
. . . .
sach; theri kasam.
. . . .
sirf ehsas heh yeh; rooh se mehsoos karo
hathom se chhoo kar ise ristom ki ilsam na de
