Skip to main content

Yudhishthira turns his back on heaven

Illustration by Gemini AI


Yudhishthira hesitated at the threshold of heaven.

They had won the war. But what did they really achieve?

Behold this field teeming with kinsmen and friends, Yudhishthira had lamented looking at the mutilated corpses on the battlefield of Kurukshetra. Vultures and jackals had started feeding on the bodies of people he knew, he loved, he never wished to kill. What glory lies in a kingdom won at such a cost?

His brothers looked at one another. They had no answer to their eldest brother’s, the new King’s, question. The immoral Kauravas had been routed. Duryodhana’s arrogance and egotism lay crushed in Kurukshetra’s dust. Even the mighty Karna, with his nobility that had deserved acknowledgement and appreciation, was decimated. Immorally.

A lot of adharma was perpetrated by the Pandavas in the name of Dharma! Even Krishna couldn’t win it without some adharma. Much adharma! Yudhishthira bowed his head in shame. What did our victory mean? He knew that it wasn’t a victory of dharma at all.

War is not the solution for evil. War is another evil. You can’t defeat evil with more evil.

Yudhishthira hesitated at the threshold of heaven.

He was alone, save the dog that joined him somewhere on the way. All his brothers and his wife fell on the way, succumbing to their own personal flaws. Draupadi was felled by her partiality for Arjuna. Pride on his wisdom brought Sahadeva down. Personal vanity undid Nakula. Even Arjuna and Bhima, with all their might and greatness, fell. The war didn’t mean ultimate victory.

What did the war achieve?

Disillusionment.

The Pandavas didn’t even want their kingdom now. Political power looked hollow in the face of all the loss that the war had brought. Loss of people, more than anything else. Loss of relationships. Loss of love.

What is life without love and relationships? Yudhishthira hesitated at the threshold of heaven.

Even Krishna perished. His entire clan did too. Dwarka sank into the sea.

Kurukshetra was not a victory. Kurukshetra was wicked, more wicked than Dhritarashtra’s Hastinapura.

I seek not heaven tainted by injustice. Yudhishthira hesitated at the threshold of heaven.

If my brothers and wife are not here, let me rather dwell in hell with them.

Heaven means nothing without the presence of people you love. Without relationships.

Yudhishthira turned his back at the threshold of heaven. Kurukshetra was a huge blunder.

Comments

  1. Hari OM
    A true eternal parable... but do those who hear/read it take its lesson?

    On a side note; initial view is that I like the arrival of Leo fourteen... YAM xx

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Those who should take the lesson don't read!

      I too think Leo XIV is going to be another blessing for the world.

      Delete
  2. I guess each generation needs to learn this lesson. Sadly, so many people have to die each time it's taught.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Right now India and Pakistan need this lesson. Neither learns anyway.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl

Don Bosco

Don Bosco (16 Aug 1815 - 31 Jan 1888) In Catholic parlance, which flows through my veins in spite of myself, today is the Feast of Don Bosco. My life was both made and unmade by Don Bosco institutions. Any great person can make or break people because of his followers. Religious institutions are the best examples. I’m presenting below an extract from my forthcoming book titled Autumn Shadows to celebrate the Feast of Don Bosco in my own way which is obviously very different from how it is celebrated in his institutions today. Do I feel nostalgic about the Feast? Not at all. I feel relieved. That’s why this celebration. The extract follows. Don Bosco, as Saint John Bosco was popularly known, had a remarkably good system for the education of youth.   He called it ‘preventive system’.   The educators should be ever vigilant so that wrong actions are prevented before they can be committed.   Reason, religion and loving kindness are the three pillars of that syste...

Truths of various colours

You have your truth and I have mine. There shouldn’t be a problem – until someone lies. Unfortunately, lying has been elevated as a virtue in present India. There are all sorts of truths, some of which are irrefutable. As a friend said the other day with a little frustration, the eternal truth is this: No matter how many times you check, the Wi-Fi will always run fastest when you don’t actually need it – and collapse the moment you’re about to hit Submit . Philosophers call it irony. Engineers call it Murphy’s Law. The rest of us just call it life. Life is impossible without countless such truths. Consider the following; ·       Change is inevitable. ·       Mortality is universal. ·       Actions have consequences. [Even if you may seem invincible, your karma will catch up, just wait.] ·       Water boils at 100 o C under normal atmospheric pressure. ·    ...

The Real Enemies of India

People in general are inclined to pass the blame on to others whatever the fault.  For example, we Indians love to blame the British for their alleged ‘divide-and-rule’ policy.  Did the British really divide India into Hindus and Muslims or did the Indians do it themselves?  Was there any unified entity called India in the first place before the British unified it? Having raised those questions, I’m going to commit a further sacrilege of quoting a British journalist-cum-historian.  In his magnum opus, India: a History , John Keay says that the “stock accusations of a wider Machiavellian intent to ‘divide and rule’ and to ‘stir up Hindu-Muslim animosity’” levelled against the British Raj made little sense when the freedom struggle was going on in India because there really was no unified India until the British unified it politically.  Communal divisions existed in India despite the political unification.  In fact, they existed even before the Briti...

The Impact of Your Deed

Illustration by Copilot Designer Thirteen-year-old Briony makes a terrible mistake. She falsely accuses Robbie of raping Lola. Robbie is arrested. Cecilia is heartbroken. Briony herself regrets her act, but too late. All the painful harms have already been done. Atonement can be meaningless sometimes. Briony, Robbie, Cecilia, all belong to Ian McEwan’s novel Atonement (2001). Why did Briony make a false charge against Robbie? First of all, there was a serious misunderstanding. Briony presumed that Robbie’s romantic interest in Cecilia, Briony’s elder sister, was lust with a mask. Secondly, Briony was probably jealous of the relationship between her sister and Robbie. As a little child, Briony had jumped into a river merely to be saved by Robbie. When asked why she did such a dangerous thing, her answer was, “Because I love you.” Robbie is accused of raping Lola, Briony’s cousin. It was Paul Marshall who actually violated Lola, not once but twice. Briony did not see the man who r...