Bhimsen: Episode 68

76 comments

1. Prem. Good one, again. While I think you are a athirathi (slightly lesser) when it comes to describing war, you are a maharathi when you describe emotion. I could sense the feelings inside each one of those people.

   1. Thanks, mate — action can leave us interested, even spellbound if done right, but leaves us emotionally untouched. A major reason for doing this was because the action is just an excuse throughout this retelling, it is the emotional undercurrents that drive the story, and they are fun to explore — plus, if you can do it even half-decently, you can touch chords in the readers. Glad to know it works 🙂

2. A good episode, indeed. But what about Ashwatthama? Surely the Pandavas weren’t going to let him go without claiming some form of retribution.

   1. I’d think Ashwathama will get mentioned when he needs to be — he doesn’t vanish without mention [MT has him brought into the story around this time, actually] — but I’d rather wait for the right frame in which to bring him back.

      Thanks, guys. Taking another day off, so will only check back much later to read your thoughts.

3. Awsome Prem. You have brought out the feeling of loss even after victory very well .. One question: Bhisma was mortally wounded on the 10th day. Any info when he actually died.

   1. The conventional story is that the sun at the time was in the dakshinayana phase, that is in the south, which apparently wasn’t the optimum for a warrior, so Bhisma lay there for six months till the sun got to where he wanted it to be. Another version is that having vowed never to die till Hastinapura was secure, he waited for the Pandavas to win and gave up the ghost once he was sure the kingdom was in good hands.

      The first didn’t make sense to me — what, every warrior who dies during those six months don’t get to go to heaven? As for the second, it too seemed one of those fanciful extrapolations, part of the later romanticising, so I left it alone. You could interpret that to mean that the grandsire fell into a coma thanks to his wounds — but in any case it is largely irrelevant: he was wounded, the wounds were mortal, as far as Bhima was concerned, that would be that. I’ve tried to avoid these logistical nightmares wherever possible; and to keep this entire narration more emotion driven than event driven, so… 🙂

4. Super Prem!! Brought out the human side of the war and the ensuing emotions in the victors brilliantly!!! Superb post!

   I think it was great that you allowed Y to justify himself finally. Also, some justice to the tragedy that was Karna’s life.

   1. 🙂 I didn’t *allow* Y to justify himself — while doing this narrative, I always had in mind that Bhim would have had doubts/questions, and that either he would at some point seek Y out to ask for answers, or Y would seek him out. The broad framework was in my mind, I left the when and how to a point where it would seem to flow naturally. While writing this, I realized that the angst-ridden brothers would meet and talk in the aftermath of war, and so this was a good time for that conversation, and Y seeking him out made sense in my mind because finally, it is all over, and being the patriarch, he never has anyone he can talk to, and if he did need someone, it would be Bhim he would naturally turn to.

5. While the rest of the episode was brilliant in depicting the emotions of the people involved, their sense of gloom and the hurt of personal loss despite having won the war, the following somehow did not have the same impact:

   ————————————-
   “Your elder brother, the one you know as Radheya…”

   “Karna?!” The word exploded from Arjuna, half question, half exclamation.

   “I shot an arrow into his heart as he begged for life… I took deliberate aim while he lay there bleeding, and shot an arrow into his throat… I killed my brother!” Arjuna crumpled to the ground, overwhelmed.
   ————————————-

   It was too contrived IMO. I was reminded of this Rajanikanth movie where he grows up as an orphan and towards the climax, while trying to save a lady from being killed by the villains goons, he comes to realize that she was his mother. And then all fighting stops (dont understand why the goons too stopped fighting) when Rajanikanth turns around (with Illayaraja’s violins in the background giving ample effect) and says a bland:

   “neenga thaan en amma vaa?”

   and lets out a tear or two before beginning his fights with the goons again.

   Arjuna would have hit hard – real, real hard. When Kunti comes up to the Pandavas and tells them – he is hearing it for the first time. I would think that he would be stunned first, followed by disbelief. Both rendering him speechless. That is how I see it – how would I react if my mother comes up to me and says that the man I have hated all my life, vowed to kill when the time comes, and actually fulfilled these vows, was actually my brother. Will I be in a position to even react?

   Arjuna’s immediate reaction is a touch too bland. Yudhishtra’s reaction however was very appropriate.

   The subsequent angst expressed by Arjuna to Bheem was also a touch dramatic. It could have been underplayed IMO.

   1. Yes well mate, what you are saying is you would have written it differently. Fair enough.

      Arjuna has always been driven by a sense of the personal. In my mind, when he learns this, his immediate reaction would be to think of the fact that he has sinned, albeit unknowingly, by killing a brother. He bursts out where Y doesn’t because he is different from his elder brother — for Y to burst out would not be in character, and neither would it be in character for A to stand there speechless.

      Again, it would — IMHO — be totally out of character for Arjuna to not express his feelings when he meets Bhim. Dramatic, perhaps — but then this is an epic tale.

      Would you be in a position to react? I don’t know — that would depend on your own character, no? I likely would have been frozen — but I can’t write Arjuna based on what I would do in a similar situation.

      Any resemblance to Rajnikanth is purely coincidental.

      1. yeah – I added those IMO because that is how I felt about it when I read the episode.

         “Any resemblance to Rajnikanth is purely coincidental.”

         Priceless 🙂

         1. -:)

            actually I too felt that Arjuna’s response was a bit too abrupt..it is almost as if he already knew. A’s dialogue with B was good though, if he is guilty about killing karna, he will blame kunti of course.

6. Masterly!!! Agree with The Commentator. Exactly how the main players would have felt. While the ‘war-reporting’ was superb, this episode has taken it to a different level. Great work!

   To Y and A, the truth about Karna is a sudden and bigger shock, while B has digested it and was more or less resigned to fate.

   Y – in his anger and sorrow seems to have missed that Draupadi fanned the flames more vigorously than their mother (justifiably so, I may add). Kunti’s message was the proverbial last straw. Perhaps the Karna realization makes him direct his anger towards his mother. Is that so?

   A – in line with his character, more concerned about ‘his’ guilt, and quick to fault the parent, which is a trait more common with ‘pet’ children

   B – as always, more empathetic, seeing the difficulties of his mother, magnanimous with Y, understanding A’s guilt. Best of all, he recaps Karna’s life where he never got his due.

   Bhim’s loneliness after the battle, the long discussion on loyalty to the patriarch and this episode sparked off personal memories – I have never seen my father getting his due from my grandfather who forever favours his other offspring. My father, never till this day faulted in his ‘duties’ as a son, while the others on many occasions have. And to top it all, attempts to reason why senior acted the way he did with him. In his early sixties now, my father still consults with him – something which I never agree and can never understand and against which I have cried myself hoarse several times. The Y-B equation several times reminds me of that.

   Cant thank Prem enough for such insightful writing. While some things are never acceptable, they are understandable.

   1. Funnily enough, like I think I said earlier, I took a lot of lessons from the way my own joint family functions, and what you say of your father and grandfather was to a large extent true in our home as well. I took some of the things I had heard and learnt while growing up, attempted to transplant that to an even more rigid era, and tried to figure out how things would play out then.

7. This post will be remembered as the “Everybody hates Kunti” one.
   On a more serious note, kudos to you for touching on the post war aspect of the Mahabharat. Most of the times,this part which actually humanizes the Pandavas is ignored because of its bleakness.

   Finally some love for Yudi:) Some of your fans will no doubt be happy.

   1. 🙂 Likely — though throughout this telling I’ve tried to avoid the trap of playing to any particular gallery. This was always coming, I only wasn’t sure till last week if it would be this episode or the next.

8. Nice work Prem – definitely the best episode. Yudhishtira explaining himself was a nice touch, though you would have expected him to do so before the war rather than after. Also, wasn’t it draupadi as much as kunti who incited the war?

   1. Not to my way of thinking — the patriarch would decide and expect you to go along with his decisions because that is his right and this is your duty.

      He is at this point not *explaining*, so much as venting; it is almost a soliloquy, an outpouring of the frustrations and griefs he has bottled up for way too long, and which finds drink-fueled relief.

      Draupadi had a large role to play, yes — but the blaming of Kunti is not so much a considered judgment as it is an emotional reaction to recent events. You’d tend to see that all the time in real life — things happen, we lash out and blame someone, where a balanced outsider would be able to parse the situation and distribute the faults more evenly.

9. Right. Breakfast, meds, some sleep. See you guys later.

10. A very nice and touching episode.

    Kunti really comes across as a very strong determined women. Someone who thinks far ahead, not falling prey to emotions and to an extent very calculative.

    Probably her early life upto the living in forest with pandu has made her a very strong willed women.

    The way she controls her sons to make sure that they get the kingdom is amazing.

    Surely one would not find such a character so easily in life.

    1. “Surely one would not find such a character so easily in life.”

       Really?

       1. “hell hath no fury like a woman scorned”

          All married folks on this forum would surely agree to witnessing such a character at least once in life.

11. Awesome episode! The emotions do tug at the heartstrings.

    Kunti’s bearing of Karna sounds logical, but some dark areas remain, like how Kunti survived the gestation period without anyone else knowing about it.

    Also, will there be an explanation of how the Pandavas were conceived despite Pandu being impotent?

    1. The Pandavas conceiving part will always remain a secret/mystery (except I suppose Y’s father that can probably be gauged/guessed). I suppose that is the what Pandu wanted and his reason to retreat into the forest.

       1. The conventional stories tell of Kunti getting boons which she could use to concieve.The way pandavas were delivered as I recall was she thought of Sun to concieve Karna,Dharmaraj for Y and vayu for Bhima.

          1. check this

             http://indraajeet.sulekha.com/blog/post/2007/08/mahabharata-the-mystery-of-the-pandava.htm

             This guy think probably Arjuna is the only biological father of Pandu.

             Apart from above guy, many critics now think that Y is Vidur’s son.

             1. “This guy think probably Arjuna is the only biological father of Pandu.”

                Bit difficult, dont you think? 😉

             2. Well, you must have surely heard of the saying “Child is the father of the man”? 😉

12. The episodes keep getting better and better as the ‘commonly known’ narrative comes to an end.

    You trash Y half the readers come down on you heavily, you allow him to shine a bit and the rest do the same. Y did you do this, Prem? Y o Y.. 🙂

    In the narrative you mention:
    “Find Karna’s widow and his children, he commanded; bring them here so they may stand with our women when we pay him our respects.”

    K’s kids (never heard of them before) are brought in the narrative and forgotten.

    Considering how they felt about killing their eldest brother and Y’s sense of dharma K’s kids should have been the heir to the throne. They had some one to perform the last rites after all.

    I assume that K had at least one male child, since everyone around seems to be having plenty of them.

    1. Same thoughts here.

       “If” Karna was alive at the end of the war, he would have been made the King according to Y’s “dharma”. So, Karna’s son was the most eligible to become king now that Karna is dead?

       1. I am not sure about that. See Karna was Kunti’s illegitimate son and not Pandu’s.

          You can turn around and argue that neither were any of the other Pandava’s. But I guess this is precisely the reason why those five brothers were attributed to gods. This way, doubting thomases could be silenced and each of the 5 brothers would be treated as legitimate owner of the throne.

    2. I mentioned Karna’s son and Ghatotkacha’s son helping the Pandavas during the time of the Ashwamedha, during an earlier discussion. And no, they are not *forgotten* — the fact that Karna had sons does not automatically mean Y has to put one of them on the throne. If Karna were alive, Y would be honor bound to make him king, but even if K is seen as a Pandava, his death means Y is the natural successor, since the sons are not yet of an age to be crowned. Keep in mind that Dhritarashtra was, upto the close of the war, the king of Hastinapura — not Duryodhana, though the latter was full grown. The fact that there is a generation next does not automatically mean he should sit on the throne at once.

       1. Agreed. We need to see that the previous generation is still alive.

          Then Karna’s son should be the next in succession line after the Pandavas are all dead and not Abhimanyu’s son Parikshit?

          1. Possibly. Versions of the Mahabharat speak of Karna’s son and Ghatotkacha’s son being active participants in the Pandava fortunes, but I don’t recall reading of anything to explain why Arjuna’s grandson succeeded to the throne when the Pandavas decided to go on the final journey. One of those many loose ends the epic is full of.

             1. Loose end for sure.

                One thought – not just the Kuru kingdom of Hastinapura, but Indraprastha, Panchala, Matsya and a few others would have been left without rightful heirs – since all children and grandchildren of Drupada and sons of Virat are shown to be killed during the war.

                Wonder if the surviving heirs were given their own fiefdoms and hence no mention about other heirs in HPura. (Cue Ramayana – all four have two sons each and seen to carve up the Indo-Gangetic plain to little pieces when it is time for Rama and brothers to retire)

                As to the question of Karna’s children and the issue of succession, at least one son of Karna (the name escapes me) is shown to be killed by Bhim and Arjuna in Ramesh Menon’s version. About others is there any mention of names in Vyasa’s magnum opus.

                Aside – Talking about no names, curiously, the son of Dushasana, who delivers the killing blow on Abhimanyu is left nameless in all versions I have seen 🙂

             2. Wasn’t that Lakshman who killed Abhimanyu?

             3. In some tellings, yes — Lakshman the son of Dushasana is the one who bashes his head in. In other tellings, Lakshman is one of the many who surround Abhimanyu — the killing is more a collective act than an individual one. Whatever…

             4. Laxman is the son of Duryodhana. He is killed by Abhimanyu which makes Duryodhana to force his generals to ambush Abhimanyu and kill him at any cost.

       2. sorry, i didn’t mean that K’s son should be king at once. i meant it in the context of the gen next being wiped out K’s progeny were the only claimants. also there was no reason for Y to worry about his last rites, etc. why overlook them for arjun’s grandson?

          it would have been very interesting if Ghatokach was the only surviving gen next.

          1. The last rites bit would be only to the extent that their own children were dead. When people in my household die, I and my cousins do the last rites — I’ve done it for my dad, and for one uncle, besides my grandparents and sundry others. But there is an uncle of our family, the one who introduced me to epics and to point of view retellings and with whom I am very close, whose constant grief is that he only has a daughter, no sons to do his last rites. There is no point in pointing out to him that there is me and five other male cousins — people of earlier generations felt very strongly about these things.

13. —-
    I thought of Karna. Of how he had lived his life with kshatriya blood in him, yet constantly reviled as a suta putra.
    —-

    But Karna still will not be a Kshatriya. Just because he is a princess son does not entitle him to that. It depends on his (acknowledged) father, no? Most likely his father was someone who Kunti was ashamed to admit to. If it was a King or a prince, what prevented Kunti from letting the world know? So most probably, it was someone who was considered inferior to Kshatriyas.

    So even if Kunti had let the truth out earlier, Karna will still be an illegitimate son. He will never be Pandu’s son, and hence never in line for the throne.

    1. Not necessarily — though I’d rather leave the hows and whys to a forthcoming episode, the bottom line is that if Kunti had acknowledged her son, and Pandu had claimed him as his, then that was that — after all, Pandu was generally known to be incapable of fathering children, yet when it came to the succession, no one questioned Yudhishtira’s claim on the grounds that though he was born to a king his real father was a mystery. The rest of the stuff can wait for the right time and the right episode — but where it concerns why Kunti needed to be ashamed, heck, she was unmarried at the time. Even today, to be an unwed mother carries a stigma in all but the big cities, and not generally even there; those were far less tolerant times.

       1. Yeah exactly, the difference being Pandavas were conceived after her marriage while Karna was born before that. So will Pandu be able to acknowledge Karna as his son? So Pandavas were conceived with Pandus knowledge and consent (Niyoga, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niyoga), but not Karna.

          When talking about Kuntis shame, I was alluding to the fact that it might not be possible for her to marry the father, not her shame on being an unwed mother. If it was a Kshatriya, that would not have been a problem, right?

          My apologies if I am jumping the gun and you plan to explain this in a future episode.

          1. Likely not in legal terms, but in those days it was more a matter of perception. If the Pandavas unanimously accepted Karna as their eldest brother, and Yudhishtira relinquished his rightful claim in favor of Karna, who was going to gainsay that?

             As far as Kunti’s giving birth to Karna and the Pandavas goes, yeah, there is an episode detailing that, a bit later in the program.

             1. My take is that Karna was not from a lower caste by birth in the conventional sense but son of Surya-that’s why he gives away his body armour which he was born with and that’s why he was called danveer,it was the stigma of a child out of wedlock for Kunti which made her give up,even though Surya was the father.He was brought up other folks,and hence associated with suta putra.I am sure Kunti would not have minded acknowledging his father afterwards.

             2. The Surya as father thing stems from the ethos of the times. Women could, if the husband was incapable, conceive through someone else — but as a matter of principle, most likely to avoid jealousies, they never named the father, but were given the option of naming a deity as the father-presumptive. So “son of Dharma” likely would be the son of some wise bloke; the divine parentage ensured that the husband had no cause to be jealous of some chappie in real life. Everyone knew the fiction, but no one minded because that was the norm.

             3. Prem,
                You are applying modern day logic to a mythology!What you are saying in the present day context makes sense and easy to accept,but assume that the era of those times people did have magical powers and why can’t the father be the sun or wind ?Assume that Sun ,Dharmaraj and Vayu were the culprits-it doesn’t make the story any less maybe only logic defying.Including the bit about Ganesha writing I would say the either it all happened as it was written or interpreted or the original composers had vivid imagination .You have your own creative freedom.

             4. Oh hey, wait — I am not using contemporary logic to explain away the past.

                The practice of Niyoga is not something I invented on the basis of my contemporary sensibilities, but a societal norm that existed in those times.

                Of course we can assume, take for granted, all those mantras and the Sun coming down to earth to father children, and massive chunks of flesh that magically broke up into 100 children, and all the rest of it [including Ganesha writing a book that appears to have vanished with him, because the disciples of Vyasa were later forced to narrate the story in their turn, which would have been unnecessary had there been a written record.}

                I have no problem with anyone who accepts the Mahabharat in toto — I read it as an epic, I delight in the sheer size of the canvas and the intricate tapestry of the storytelling. But as I keep pointing out, that is one interpretation — one that has stood the test of time, and one I have no need to recreate. This is another, smaller interpretation — but the nice thing is, the Mahabharat permits any and all interpretations to coexist, so let’s leave it at that, no?

             5. Posting as a separate thread as the earlier thread got too long.

                I find MB more amenable to usual humane interpretation than Ramayana. Here’s my interpretation of Pandavas birth story.
                Pandu was definitely impotent. He was born weak and pale ( a reason attributed to the princess being afraid of Vyasa when she went to him for Niyoga). His going into forest was to facilitate the Niyoga process. I read a novel called Avadheshwari about forefathers of Rama, where the author had described Niyoga in detail. It’s supposed to be an elaborate process, right from identifying the right and able bodied man to, right muhurta and right kind of puja was performed. The woman(would be mother) is supposed to be in deep puja and completely immersed in thoughts of her husband even during the process of intercourse, so that the child could be considered a legal heir.
                My guess is the names of Sun, Vayu, Indra came from the Gods that Kunti performed puja for while going through the niyoga process.
                And as Prem said, the names of the men who gave sperms didn’t matter and probably nobody knew except Kunti.
                Another strange thing in MB(different from Ramayana) is the way sons are referred to by their mother’s names. It appears a matriarchical society if you look at that aspect alone.

       2. Hmmm… makes me wonder, what would have happened if Kunti had told Y about Karna much earlier and Y for all his dharma baggage, would accept him as an elder brother and successor to Hastinapura.

          Duryodhana has been rightful many times.. he may possibly have accepted it and maybe that would have avoided war.

          Somehow I feel Y would not like to give the additional credit of being righteous to D.

          Lot of hypothesis ofcourse.. but what do you think?

          1. Besides, the war itself would likely not have happened. Duryodhana clearly did not bank on the strength of Bhisma or Drona — since the day of the contest of skills, it was always Karna he banked on as the antidote to Arjuna and the means to win the war. With Karna and Arjuna on one side? You would have to assume D would have had more sense than to start a war he clearly could not win — so the likely outcome would have been D ruling Hastinapura and the Pandavas under K ruling Indraprastha. That is to say, no story 🙂

             1. If no war,then no Bhagwad Gita perhaps !Maybe K and D ruling under peaceful co -existence.What would have been Shakuni upto?All a matter of conjencture.

    2. I think the varna (caste) of a person is determined by the varna of the mother and not the father. Case in point, Dhritarashtra and Pandu themselves, were fathered by Vyasa (a brahmin sage?) but they were still considered Kshatriyas. Vidura was considered a suta (and not a brahmin) because his mother was one.

       1. Think this post would be about karna as the other one was about Yudhishtira.

          My thinking is a persons caste is determined by perception (as Prem mentioned above). Thus Pandu and Dhritharashtra were bought up as Kshatriyas in a Kshatriya family. Vyasa fatheredthem for Kuru family. At the sametime, Vidura was considered not a Brahmin, because he was in no way related to Kuruvamsh. He was always perceived as maids son, he was bought up as one.

          Likewise, if Kunti had confided in Pandu about Karna and Pandu had accepted him, wouldn’t he have grown up as a Kshatriya too?

       2. By that count, the father of Pandu/ Dhritrashtra/Vidura would belong to the clan of fishermen.By ‘father’ I mean both Vichitravirya and Sage Vyasa – the father in name and the man who fathered the children. Therefore anyone but Bhisma would be unfit for the throne.

          Some grey area about Varna from mother, I would think…

          1. all this discussion ..reminded me the below link which Prem had shared in past …a ‘slant-eyed look at the Mahabharat’. This was really funny man.Plan to read it again.

             http://aashraya.blogspot.com/2005/11/vyasas-dissertation.html

14. for me, MB turned on its head in this episode.
    Unraveling mystery or just the way Prem is narrating.

    For all those readers who were not happy with portrayal of Y, which of course we were seeing through Bhim’s eyes which never sees grey, in this episode, Y must have been redeemed.

    Moment ago Bhim thinks how could he curse his mother and then he is left with another revelation. Can’t wait for Monday!

    KP

    1. You know, I am not even sure Y needed redemption. The bits where he talks about his various attempts to avoid war were not really intended to balance the earlier portions where, in the opinion of a lot of readers, he came across as a wimp and a bit of an idiot — the intention was to explore the mindset of the victorious Pandavas. Bhim’s sense of emptiness, Y’s of total frustration that despite doing everything he possibly could, even incurring the displeasure of his own brothers, he was unable to prevent a cataclysm he could see coming.

       One of the problems I had with responding to some questions you guys ask — like the one on Y for instance — is that they were premature. To respond, I would then have needed to undercut my own narrative, which made no sense.

       Like I mentioned a few times during the several debates on Y, my vision of him was always that of a man of very strong principles who would do what he thought was right even if it meant earning the disapproval, even contempt, of others including his own brothers; a man conscious of his position and responsibilities as the head of a household, hence one forced to hold himself a bit aloof from his brothers; a man who was born to rule and trained to rule, but who partly from his own pacifist nature and partly because of training or lack thereof, rarely shone to advantage in a confrontational situation.

       We tend generally to see things as positives or negatives, so I guess the ongoing discussion of the portrayal of Y was natural enough — though I’ll confess it got a bit difficult at times to find responses without jumping ahead of my own narrative.

15. Another excellent episode Prem !
    eagerly waiting for the next episode to reveal some more mysteries …

    I think you never mentioned about the 100 sons to Dhritarashtra in your narration, but I remember reading it somewhere ..that it was possible through cloning [:D]. Any plans to cover this part and the story related to sakuni

    1. Oh yeah, that was another question. This episode was a high intensity one for me and hence forgot all about that.

       Of the Kauravas we see only D1, D2 and Vikarna. Some mention about Chitrasena in a childhood episode. A handful of others are named when Bhim lands the killing blow. But the birth, number etc – do we get to know what Bhim thinks of those aspects.

       1. Um not really. During the war episodes there are a couple of places where I mention Duryodhana’s brothers dying at Bhim’s hands — seven on one occasion, a group I didn’t number on another. I took the “100 children” to basically mean lots of brothers, with poetic license being used to arrive at the number. I haven’t seen any list of the Kaurava princes anyplace, and to have Bhim work his way through an attendance register would have been tedious in the extreme, so I kind of danced my way around that one by using those two encounters, and then the ones with Dushasana and Duryodhana. Clearly, no Kaurava prince is left standing after the war, and that I figured was all I needed to make clear.

          1. Leave aside poetic license, how can one imagine 100 children born to one mother??

             1. Dont think all the 100 were born to Gandhari.. Like Prem mentioned in one of the episodes, Yuyustu was born to a maid. So may be main guys, Dury.. Dushh were born to Gandhari, but the rest to others.

16. Just wonder at which point of time ..Karan exactly came to know ..that he was ‘Kunti Putra’. what was his early reaction ? and who informed him ? If Kunti , as per the conventional story before the war starts and he promises to kill only 1 of her sons. How come Kunti came to know that the Karna is only her discarded son.

    If he didn’t knew he was Kunti Putra till the war started .what made him have that attitude of a ‘Kshatriya Prince’ ? His superior skills compared to others ? Or his half Kshatriya Bloodline ?

    1. I don’t think we can be sure about it. In one of the versions I read (Mritinjaya – Marathi by Shivaji Sawant) Krishna tells Karna the truth when he (Krishna) goes to Hastinapur to convey Y’s message about 5 villages…the book narrates Karna’s reaction beautifully. Later Kunti tells Karna just before the war and so does Bhishma just before K joining the war on 11th day.

    2. I thought it was mentioned in an earlier episode? The two armies are heading towards Kurukshetra when Kunti tells Karna of his origins — the conversation Visokan overhears and, on the battlefield, tells Bhima about.

       The attitude would come from supreme skills. Ekalavya too was a confident, highly skilled warrior who carried himself like a kshatriya, not a tribal. Today’s analog — the small town cricketers of today who carry themselves with the verve and panache previously reserved for the Bombay boys who dominated the game. 🙂

    3. Oh, and Kunti knew who Karna was at the time of the trial of strength — when she abandoned him, she had included the golden ear ornaments and armor of a kshatriya, to signal his royal blood — when she saw him in the field, in that armor and with those earrings, she realized who he was, and fainted — as mentioned in the episode covering that event.

       1. The armour that fits an infant fits a full grown boy/young man as well? In your logically correct narration (thus far), I don’t think you should allow for this 🙂

          Or may be Kunti just packed an armour and ear rings of a man along with the baby. Possible. Must be this way since I dont think people made armours that would fit infants 🙂

          1. Staying with commonsense, I didn’t suggest the armor was *on* him — merely that she added the signage of the grown kshatriya to the bundle she consigned to the river. 🙂

             Of course, to be *totally* logical is to ask if that kind of weight could be added to a little reed basket — but then again, no one said it had to be a reed basket, could as easily have been a small boat.

17. I am amazed at the amount of grief being shown on the loss of Karna vs. their own children. Even if they knew Karna was their brother could it have changed the dynamics and avoided a war?

    A mortal would be doing exactly the opposite (greive more about loss of children) but I guess this is what make this a “story”…am i missing something

    1. I think it is the What If that is playing more in the minds of everybody than the grief due to Karna’s death. Specially in case of Bhim ( and I think in one of the episodes it was pointed out as well) where he really feels that if Karna was on their side, the entire war would not have taken place due to the changed dynamics. Y is also shown as a person against the war as he also felt that at the end of the war everybody will lose more than they gain.

       I think it is more human nature to always think of What If specially in a scenario where you dont get what you always wanted ( or the way you wanted). Hence Karna is being referred more from that angle than anything else.

    2. The grief over Karna would come from a combination of factors: The sense of shock that they never knew; the sense of guilt that it was Karna more than any others that they constantly reviled as one of low caste, the sense that with Karna on their side they would have been invincible, there would be no war… in Arjuna’s case the additional guilt of having killed a brother, that too in a way he knew wasn’t fair.

18. This one is an interesting essay (narration done thru the POV of Dhritarashtra )

    http://www.boloji.com/hinduism/119.htm

19. Prem,
    Now that we are almost coming to the conclusion of Bhimsen, I would love if u could start another entire series of retelling Mahabharatha from Arjuna’s POV or Draupadi’s POV .. or for that matter, a Mahabharatha series from Yudhishtura’s POV would be extremely interesting …

    I am sure we can start a discussion forum on a particular character’s POV , with people providing their 2 cents ..

    Maybe somebody like you (with good writing skills) can compile them into a very interesting Novel/Blog Series ..
    Anand

20. Hello Prem,

    I just begun to read the Bhim story and I wanted to tell you that I am enjoying it tremendously. MT’s Randaamoozham has left a very distinct imprint in me and I look forward to another experience of a similar nature

    Asha

21. ラッシュガード ハーレー

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