Skip to main content

Dharma Yuddha

Image from scoopwhoop


 Yudhishthira

 

This victory seems more like defeat to me,

What have I achieved?

Death is what I have reaped in the end,

And that too using the foulest means.

 

What am I but a ruthless killer?

It was better to be a gambler

than a warrior for dharma.

 

Krishna

 

My birth was blackened by the shadow of death

Cast by none less than my uncle.

I erased that shadow by killing my uncle.

Killing came to me as naturally

As romance did.

 

I led the ultimate war between dharma and adharma,

Using adharma so that dharma wins.

It was better to be an ordinary mortal

Than a deity with a mission.

 

Comments

  1. The Moon's BOYFRIEND November 11, 2021 at 10:56 AM

    This makes me think a lot... it's like thoughts firing from every corner. One of them goes like this,

    "Ordinary mortals with power name their actions dharma making them,look like gods."

    I feel this connected to one of your previous blogs, the place beyond rights and wrongs.

    ReplyDelete
  2. जितेन्द्र माथुरNovember 12, 2021 at 10:11 AM

    Hmmm. Right you are. It's better to be an ordinary mortal than a deity with a mission. In India, a lot of wrongs are (and have been) justified by quoting the examples of those called as gods (from the mythology).

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalNovember 13, 2021 at 9:48 AM

      Some of the weirdest ironies of life! Anyway, what the epic writer said in the beginning is true: "Whatever is in the world is here." The epic has everything from virtue to vice to cunning to … Today's rulers, even outside India, seem to take all those vices and cunning more seriously than the virtues.

      Delete
  3. parwatisingariNovember 12, 2021 at 11:19 AM

    the gambler stayed true to his dharma...even war is a gamble. the Killer stayed true to his dharma... killed every thing that challenged him and his autonomy. Yet romance turned them both into icons. Hasyam Kamadahanam.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anupama JoshyNovember 14, 2021 at 6:32 PM

    This reminds me of king Ashoka and how the Kalinga war had a devastating effect on him making him realize death is all he reaped

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalNovember 14, 2021 at 9:06 PM

      A lot of people realise the futility of their deeds too late!

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ayodhya: Kingdom of Sorrows

T he Sarayu carried more tears than water. Ayodhya was a sad kingdom. Dasaratha was a good king. He upheld dharma – justice and morality – as best as he could. The citizens were apparently happy. Then, one day, it all changed. One person is enough to change the destiny of a whole kingdom. Who was that one person? Some say it was Kaikeyi, one of the three official wives of Dasaratha. Some others say it was Manthara, Kaikeyi’s chief maid. Manthara was a hunchback. She was the caretaker of Kaikeyi right from the latter’s childhood; foster mother, so to say, because Kaikeyi had no mother. The absence of maternal influence can distort a girl child’s personality. With a foster mother like Manthara, the distortion can be really bad. Manthara was cunning, selfish, and morally ambiguous. A severe physical deformity can make one worse than all that. Manthara was as devious and manipulative as a woman could be in a men’s world. Add to that all the jealousy and ambition that insecure peo...
29 comments
Read more

Abdullah’s Religion

O Abdulla Renowned Malayalam movie actor Mohanlal recently offered special prayers for Mammootty, another equally renowned actor of Kerala. The ritual was performed at Sabarimala temple, one of the supreme Hindu pilgrimage centres in Kerala. No one in Kerala found anything wrong in Mohanlal, a Hindu, praying for Mammootty, a Muslim, to a Hindu deity. Malayalis were concerned about Mammootty’s wellbeing and were relieved to know that the actor wasn’t suffering from anything as serious as it appeared. Except O Abdulla. Who is this Abdulla? I had never heard of him until he created an unsavoury controversy about a Hindu praying for a Muslim. This man’s Facebook profile describes him as: “Former Professor Islahiaya, Media Critic, Ex-Interpreter of Indian Ambassador, Founder Member MADHYAMAM.” He has 108K followers on FB. As I was reading Malayalam weekly this morning, I came to know that this Abdulla is a former member of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind Kerala , a fundamentalist organisation. ...
10 comments
Read more

Lucifer and some reflections

Let me start with a disclaimer: this is not a review of the Malayalam movie, Lucifer . These are some thoughts that came to my mind as I watched the movie today. However, just to give an idea about the movie: it’s a good entertainer with an engaging plot, Bollywood style settings, superman type violence in which the hero decimates the villains with pomp and show, and a spicy dance that is neatly tucked into the terribly orgasmic climax of the plot. The theme is highly relevant and that is what engaged me more. The role of certain mafia gangs in political governance is a theme that deserves to be examined in a good movie. In the movie, the mafia-politician nexus is busted and, like in our great myths, virtue triumphs over vice. Such a triumph is an artistic requirement. Real life, however, follows the principle of entropy: chaos flourishes with vengeance. Lucifer is the real winner in real life. The title of the movie as well as a final dialogue from the eponymous hero sugg...
4 comments
Read more

Empuraan and Ramayana

Maggie and I will be watching the Malayalam movie Empuraan tomorrow. The tickets are booked. The movie has created a lot of controversy in Kerala and the director has decided to impose no less than 17 censors on it himself. I want to watch it before the jingoistic scissors find its way to the movie. It is surprising that the people of Kerala took such exception to this movie when the same people had no problem with the utterly malicious and mendacious movie The Kerala Story (2023). [My post on that movie, which I didn’t watch, is here .] Empuraan is based partly on the Gujarat riots of 2002. The riots were real and the BJP’s role in it (Mr Modi’s, in fact) is well-known. So, Empuraan isn’t giving the audience any falsehood as The Kerala Story did. Moreover, The Kerala Story maligned the people of Kerala while Empuraan is about something that happened in the faraway Gujarat quite long ago. Why are the people of Kerala then upset with Empuraan ? Because it tells the truth, M...
13 comments
Read more

Empuraan – Review

Revenge is an ancient theme in human narratives. Give a moral rationale for the revenge and make the antagonist look monstrously evil, then you have the material for a good work of art. Add to that some spices from contemporary politics and the recipe is quite right for a hit movie. This is what you get in the Malayalam movie, Empuraan , which is running full houses now despite the trenchant opposition to it from the emergent Hindutva forces in the state. First of all, I fail to understand why so much brouhaha was hollered by the Hindutvans [let me coin that word for sheer convenience] who managed to get some 3 minutes censored from the 3-hour movie. The movie doesn’t make any explicit mention of any of the existing Hindutva political parties or other organisations. On the other hand, Allahu Akbar is shouted menacingly by Islamic terrorists, albeit towards the end. True, the movie begins with an implicit reference to what happened in Gujarat in 2002 after the Godhra train burnin...
8 comments
Read more