Week 6 Story; The One Where Duryodhana Takes Control

***Check out the new and revised version of this story at my portfolio here!***

Source: A mantra and song from the Indian TV show Devon Ke Dev Mahadev. It is centered around Lord Shiva, who does not appear in this story, but I love the music. I also think it sounds suspenseful, so I thought it would be good to listen to while reading the story!

I'm strong, I'm valiant, I'm an excellent warrior, and I have studied my father's rule over Hastinapura for years. I'm fit to be king. I am Duryodhana, after all. But who does old Dhritarashtra pick to ascend to the throne? The useless, dumbfounded, and clumsy Yudhishthira, who is also unfortunately my cousin.

Ugh, I'm sorry. Where are my manners? Let me introduce myself and my family. I am Duryodhana, the eldest of the hundred sons of King Dhritarashtra. I am also the strongest and most intelligent of my brothers, but that's besides the point. My family goes by "the Kauravas." Now, my father's brother, Pandu, has a wife named Kunthi. She had five sons, all from different gods. Those five, called the Pandavas, are the worst, and you're about to see why. But first, some background information about my archenemies. 

Yudhishthira is the oldest of the five, and everyone in the entire kingdom adores him like he's their son. Why, you ask? I DON'T KNOW. If you find out, let me know, because I've been trying to decipher that my whole life. Anyway, the next son is Bhima. He is the strongest of the five, and that's cool and everything, but like... how smart is he really? He can shake the ground so hard the weather changes, but that's one trait! Why everyone thinks he's the most amazing warrior, I will never know. Kunthi's third son is Arjuna. When he was born, he was normal. Suddenly, he got really good at throwing weapons around. But even then, our master Drona trained all of us, so we should have all been at the same level of weapon-throwing. But no. Of course Arjuna was Drona's favorite. Our master ended up gifting Arjuna with the brahmastra, a weapon capable of defeating any opponent if used with the right mantra. I could not believe it. Just because he's a Pandava? Ugh. The last two Pandavas are twins: Sahadeva and Nakula. Those two just follow the other three around and do whatever they say. Typical younger siblings doing typical childish things. 

All five of them made my life growing up a living hell. They thought they were funny, pulling all those pranks. Even my own father thought they were funny and sided with his nephews rather than HIS OWN SON. I should have guessed they would be his favorite. I remember when they came to live in our palace and the moment he saw the five of them and what all they could accomplish together. He immediately fell in love with the new family. However, I soon realized that as long as Dhritarashtra could see, he wouldn't ever side with me. He would always appreciate the Pandavas more than the rest of us. So, I made a plan with my uncle Sakuni and some of my other brothers: we were going to make sure my father could never see again. Now, there are many ways we could have gone about this. We could have shot an arrow into both of his eyes, but that would be hard without Dhritarashtra seeing us as we were doing it. We could have stabbed him in the eye when he sleeps, but again, that would be hard when he is in bed with our mother Gandhari and she would be able to see us stabbing our own father. Plus, that would put our father in a lot of pain and I'm not sure we would be able to handle putting him through that. I may have a heart of ice, but I do have one. Anyway, we finally came to the conclusion that the only way we could make our father blind was to steal the brahmastra from Arjuna. The weapon has great powers, and will perform any command if the mantra is spoken correctly. Only one problem with that - none of us knew the mantra to make the weapon do what we wanted. So here's what we did:

We stalked Arjuna for weeks to try to find out what the mantra was, because we did know that in order to keep the brahmastra "alive" and intact, the owner has to say the incantation once a week. So, we hid behind bushes around his bedroom, pretended to bring him food or water at random times at night, put our ears to the wall separating his room with an adjacent room, everything. We. Tried. Everything. He would not ever practice the mantra! At one point, we thought maybe he had forgotten he even had it and hadn't practiced the mantra in years and allowed the weapon to die slowly. But then, one night, I saw a dark figure leaving Arjuna's room and heading towards the forest. I had my suspicions, so my brothers and I followed. We walked for about an hour until the figure finally stopped in the middle of the forest and pulled out something from his bag. It was the brahmastra! So this is where Arjuna practiced his mantra all the time, and we never even noticed him leaving the castle at night... Gotta admit, it was a clever hiding spot. But anyway, right after Arjuna recited the mantra, one of my brothers made a sound of a dying deer. We knew Arjuna was soft when it came to animals and hoped he would go tend to it. Our plan worked! Arjuna kept following the sound of the animal, not knowing my brothers were leading him far away from his brahmastra. When he realized it, we had already taken the weapon and were halfway back to the palace with the mantra replaying in our minds.

I creeped into our father's bedroom, where he was peacefully sleeping with our mother. I held the brahmastra in my hand and slowly and softly sang the mantra. I then imagined a blind King Dhritarashtra in my head, and then I saw a bright flash hitting my father's eyes. He didn't feel it. 

...He also didn't see it. Ha. 

Don't ever mess with the Kauravas.

Source: The brahmastra, which is seen as one of the most powerful weapons.

Bibliography: R. K. Narayan's Mahabharata.

Author's Note:

So, this is a new style I tried out where it's all in first person. I picked Duryodhana to tell the story because I wanted to give his actions a reason. Most of the story is facts from the Mahabharata, such as the information about the Pandava brothers. One thing I changed was not mentioning Karna at all (this story could go on forever if I added every character). For this reason, in my story the Brahmastra was given to Arjuna instead of Karna. I thought it be best to portray the hatred between the two sides of the family by having Duryodhana steal a valuable possession from his cousin and turn it around as a revenge scenario to his own father. In the original Mahabharata, Dhritarashtra was born blind and Gandhari covered her eyes just to match her husband; nobody specifically set out to blind them. I chose to make Duryodhana blind his own father because I wanted to make the story interesting and have him act on his hatred, rather than complain about it to his father like he does throughout the Mahabharata. I hope you all liked it, and I would love any suggestions since this is my first time doing a story like this :)

Reading Notes; R. K. Narayan's Mahabharata, Part B

Indraprastha
I found it really shocking to find out the Kauravas actually wanted the Pandavas and their mother Kunthi dead. When the text said the two sides of the family were not fond of each other, I thought the Kauravas just wanted the Pandavas to step down and let Duryodhana be king. However, they actually tried killing them all! Even Kunthi, who didn't do anything wrong or vouch for anyone specifically. However, the Pandavas seem more agreeable and humble than the Kauravas at this point and I love how they constructed a beautiful city (Indraprastha) out of a simple desert. The Karuavas thought making the Pandavas go to a desert would make them upset, but they ended up doing the opposite, which obviously frustrated Duryodhana. Although Dhritarashtra seems to be a good man, he is torn between making each side of the family happy. Since Duryodhana is always the one to be upset and since nothing pleases him, Dhritarashtra is forced by his own conscience to give the oldest Kaurava brother whatever he needs. I could re-write this part of the epic in many ways. For one, I could have have Dhritarashtra not be blind; I think this handicap makes him vulnerable to many things; since he cannot see, he has to ask someone to recount what is happening and whenever they mention one of his sons or nephews being hurt, he immediately loses control of his emotions. So maybe if he was a King who could see, he would not need advice from others as much and maybe would not be influenced by Duryodhana's evil mind. 

The Dice
Sakuni is an evil mastermind when it comes to gambling with dice, it seems. He somehow gets Yudhishthira to gamble away all his possessions, even his brothers and his own wife! I thought that was extremely shocking because I thought Yudhishthira was intelligent and fit to be King. However, he was so engrossed in the game he did not realize what he was doing. He even comes back for a second game and has his whole family exiled for 13 years, which brought quite the twist into the story. I have been wanting to do a Lion King themed story sometime, so maybe this is the time to do it, as there is another form of exile. Simba could be Yudhishthira, he could have 4 brothers and a wife who he takes care of along the way. I'm not really sure yet, but it might just work!

Krishna
I have been waiting to see how Krishna finds his way into the Mahabharata, so I was excited to see him appear and would like to see how exactly he influences the rest of the story. I feel like I could write a lot about Krishna and his work with the Pandavas. 

Bibliography: Narayan's Mahabharata, Part B.

Source: A picture of Indraprastha from the Mahabharata story told in a Youtube video.

Reading Notes; R. K. Narayan's Mahabharata, Part A

The Mahabharata provides many back stories, many of which appear in Part A of the reading. It's really interesting to see how different characters turn out to be a God/Goddess later on.

Bhishma
It's really interesting to see how Bhishma readily agrees to not ascend to the throne and to never have kids that could potentially be successors of the kingdom, especially for a family he did not know. He did it all for his father, which shows a great deal of loyalty. However, if I were to rewrite this part, I would maybe tell it from Bhishma's point of view as he rules the kingdom himself. Things would have probably gone a very different path in this case.

Ambika and Ambalika
I thought it was amusing that since Ambika closes her eyes when Vyasa sleeps with her, their son is born blind, and when Ambalika turns pale when Vyasa sleeps with her, their son is born very, very pale. If I were to rewrite this part of the Mahabharata, I would possibly tie in a "deaf, dumb, and blind" sort of theme, where one son was born deaf, one was born without the ability to speak, and one was blind. Maybe all three sons would get along perfectly, or maybe they would have their own people rooting for them to ascend to the throne. 

The Pandavas
There is a Bollywood movie called "Karan Arjun," where the two are brothers who live a simple life with their caring mother. They are killed by a villain in an attempt to save their mother from him, and are reborn into the world. When they become older, they feel a connection but have no recollection of their previous lives. It's a really interesting movie with lots of fighting, and when I read about Arjuna in the Mahabharata, that movie is all I could think about. I could possibly write up a back-story for Arjuna and tie in the movie plot. Also, Karna was a son of Kunthi that not many people knew about until after he died. Karan and Arjun in the movie also fight against one another initially due to some conflicts, but later remember their previous lives. Karna's name even looks like Karan's (with only two letters switched), so I could maybe have Karna and Arjuna find out their true identities in my retell. 

Draupadi
I couldn't figure out if Draupadi getting five husbands was a blessing or a curse. In her previous life, she had wanted one husband with five different personalities, so why was five husbands such a curse to her? Maybe I could go more in depth into her previous life and why exactly she wanted her husband to act like five different people, or maybe I could write a story in which there was a competition between the five Pandava brothers to win Draupadi as their wife. 

Bibliography: Narayan's Mahabharata, Part A.

Source: The five Pandava brothers, with their wife Draupadi in the middle.