None will cry...

Prolixity is human. May be, more Indian. Possibly that’s why; we, the Indians, love more talks, more jargons, more lingo and more arguments.

As a matter of fact, none other than Mr. Amartya Sen has beautifully essayed this very quality of our inherent culture in his book The Argumentative Indian.

Taking cues from that book and blending it with the epic The Mahabharata, I have also found something to mull over and germinate an argument.

An argument that has always disturbed me and my thought process due to which I can never take the concept for granted that the battle of Kurukshetra took place ONLY because of Duryodhana.

It’s very easy to hold Duryodhana solely responsible for the entire mess, mayhem and massacre happened in The Mahabharata, whereas the real truth is entirely different, as per my opinion.

Here I go with my logic…

First things first, so I begin with Dhritarashtra. He knew it for a fact and from the word go that he was blind. Of course, it’s a handicap for ruling a dynasty. If he was a little bit sensible, he could have understood that reigning an empire was not his cup of tea, really.

But, as the blindness in his eyes got into his mind too, he never bothered to think in that line. Rather, he literally forced Gandhari to get married to him… probably bragging that he was the king of Hastinapur. This, for the reason obvious, didn’t go very well with Gandhari herself as well as with her brother Shakuni.

As a result, the bro and the sis took an oath in unison that they would see the end to it. From that day onwards, the seed of peril and death was planted in the garden of the Kauravas.

The playact started with Gandhari. She simply blindfolded her eyes, intentionally, with a piece of cloth. She actually did this just to avoid even the slightest glimpse of her blind husband Dhritarashtra but marketed it so cunningly that her mockery became a talking point of unprecedented sacrifice of a wife – as if made in order to match her husband’s footsteps in every walk of life. A petty dig at someone’s misery and handicap was dramatised, ironically, as a high-graded commitment and dedication of a lady.

Besides, knowing her bro Shakuni quite well, Gandhari was convinced that this make-belief sacrifice of hers would be fair enough instigation, pep and constant reminder for Shakuni to accomplish his task against Dhritarashtra and the Kauravas in general.

The plot was well laid out and amidst this Duryodhana and his siblings were born to Gandhari and Dhritarashtra.

Their birth was adequate piss [and pee, since pee and babies are synonymous :P] for the first lady of Hastinapur.

Getting pregnant by Dhritarashtra early and then delivering 101 number of children drove the lady crazy to her wit’s end, for sure.

No way was Gandhari willing to take more beating on her. So her plan was simple, “Let’s make Duryodhana himself the nemesis of the Kauravas.”

But how? As no child is born as a criminal. But, yes, a child can be made so. Hence, let’s made him one.

As she thought, she did it accordingly. Gandhari assigned Shakuni to take care of her children, especially of Duryodhana. And she herself began to massage the inflated ego and false pride of Dhritarashtra by pushing the blind king more n more into the dark lanes of skepticism, lament, curse and vengeance against the innocent and helpless Pandavas.

While she was doing her part, Shakuni was outstanding in his role. He made sure that Duryodhana gradually grew up as an epitome of lie, deceit, whim, indiscrimination, manipulation, indiscipline and idiosyncrasy.

It was not like that that other elders in the family or in the close circle of the Kauravas were not aware of Shakuni’s misguidance to Duryodhana but they decided to keep mum – as, it always feels good if others’ children get spoilt. Sad, but true!

Given this, when Duryodhana fabricated the reason and the rationality of his never-to-be-quenched grudge against the Pandavas, the Kaurav-brigade of grey hair gleefully accepted the story that Draupadi laughed at and made fun of Duryodhana while he slipped into the water at the palace in Indraprastha mistakenly thinking that he was walking on a glossy floor.

I still find it difficult to acknowledge, whether an innocuous laughter could at all be any cause to such a devastating war like the one held in the battlefield of Kurukshetra, later on, as a consequence of Draupadi’s laughter!

I have my serious doubt in place. Honestly.

Then came the famously infamous or infamously famous strip tease of Draupadi – courtesy Duryodhana’s direction and Dushasana’s roll, take and action… and Sri Krishna’s intervention for a premature cut.

This leads to the reality that what Sri Krishna even being an outsider could afford to do for Draupadi, the family members and the relatives of the Kauravas – who were incidentally also related to the Pandavas – didn’t even feel like doing.

Why so?

Was it because they also wanted to experience the fall of Dhritarashtra and his family, eventually? Or the produced titillation of a female skin and flesh – even if she’s a daughter or a daughter-in-law – was an unlimited free seduction for those men who were supposedly suffering from mid-age and old-age crisis with an insatiable orgy?

If so, then why should we blame only Duryodhana for blackening and painting the face of his family when he was literally first spoilt and then exploited by his own mother Gandhari, father Dhritarashtra, maternal uncle Shakuni, and the likes.

Had Duryodhana been so evil, then he wouldn’t have given the shelter and the due respect to someone like Karna – who was rather unceremoniously delivered to be dumped by his own mother Kunti, so that he lived a life of a bastard.

Proves the point that Duryodhana was not at all a bad soul. But his problem was he was hatched by his family and relatives in such a way, so that he could be used like a puppet or a sacred goat in line with his inherited and imbibed bloated ego, stubbornness, mindlessness and anxiety – altogether that never helped him take any right decision per se.

To say the least, Duroyodhana’s vindictive nature or attitude was the product of his father Dhritarashtra only. For, if, as a loyal son to his father Dhritarashtra, Duroyodhana saw that his father embraced a iron idol of Bhima (Duryodhana’s cousin bro) to crush the idol in a vain effort to kill Bhima what lesson misguided Duryodhana was bound to learn then from none but his blind father about relationship and love, and humanity?!

Of course, the lesson for him was, “Killing is everything.”

Perhaps, pursuing this wrong understanding about life and owing to his bad education, stale value system, tasteless upbringing and spiteful principles and morals, Duryodhana could hardly justify any of his actions against the Pandavas and invited his untimely death as well as all others’ for nothing in the battle of Kurukshetra – known as Dharmayudh.

Now, as a conclusion, in light of The Mahabharata and the TRUTH, it ensures that if parents are so blind on mind their child(ren) ought to be depleted, defeated and defamed everywhere; be in life or death. Thereafter, it’s only those blind parents who will be left alone and forced to bear the corpse of their beloved child(ren) to the burial ground or the crematorium on their own. And for them, none will cry!

PS: If you liked this piece or even hated, feel free to comment to talk your mind.