Mahabharat - A different point of view - Part 1

From my childhood, I have been reading as well as listening stories from my parents about Mahabharat. Recently I have got a best friend who is also my colleague. We often talk about Ramayan, Mahabharat and our favourite topic is Krishna of course. As I said in my previous post, Without Him it was impossible for Pandavas to win Mahabharat. My friend says, Bhishma Alone would have finished the game till lunch time on the first day itself. But it was Krishna, and his strategies which led to victory of Pandavas.

But in this article I am not going to talk about the goodness of pandavas, or Krishna or his powers. Lets think Mahabharat in a different angle. If Bhishma would have come to throne rather than Dhritarashtra, Mahabharat would'nt have happened. Ok Leave it. Shakuni, King of Gandhar, was defeated by Bhishma and Pandu. Following is the story as per Wikipedia:

It is said that in some military campaign of either Bheeshma, Pandu, or Shantanu, Gandhara came under attack from Hastinapur. Hastinapur conquered Gandhar, killed the king Achala Suvala, and imprisoned all the male members of his line, saying that line was full of adharma. This included Shakuni and his 100 brothers (in some accounts, "brothers" is literal, in others it is used to represent other family members in what was common usage at the time). Since all of them were sparsely fed (with one grain of rice each per day) in the prison, the family decided that at least one of them could survive and gave all the rice to Shakuni, the most cunning of them all, so that he could live on to take revenge. Eventually, King Subala, Shakuni's father, bends the knee to make a permanent mark of the injustice. Considered a man of dharma, his family is allowed to live. In some stories, Shakuni carves from the bones of his dead parents dice that will never lose him a game. Shakuni's father's soul is said to have entered the dice and it would roll to whatever number Shakuni wanted. Shakuni was unhappy with his sister Gandhari's marriage to Kaurava prince Dhritarashtra. He was more so ever angry with Bhishma for bringing this proposal as he found it insulting and demeaning, not only because Dhritarashtra was blind, but because of the way the Kurus had destroyed his line years before. He swore to avenge this insult by slowly destroying Bhishma's clan. He achieved this by poisoning the mind of his volatile nephew, and influenced Duryodhana into instigating the war with the Pandavas, which resulted in the destruction of the Kuru line.

This made Shakuni to take revenge, and the he used Duryodhan as his weapon to destroy the entire kuru dynasty. Lets think from Duryodhan's perspective, why would he keep rivalry with Pandavas since childhood. Pandu was already dead, Dhritarashtra became king. Their wasn't any reason for rivalry or jealousy. But the poison was filled by Shakuni in his mind which led Duryodhan to do atrocities on Pandavas.

Next is Karna, Why he went to Duryodhans side. Just because when others boycott him just because of his caste, duryodhan helped him. As he was the only one who saw potentials and talent in Karna. Going back to Karna's history, Just because of Kunti's mistake, Karna has to suffer for his whole life. (Will speak about this mistake later!! stay tuned)

All 99 brothers of Duryodhan, followed his orders, was that their mistake?? They were obeying orders of their elder brother including dusshasana, who blindly followed his orders to molest draupadi infront of everyone. I dont support the act by any manner.

What about Ashwatthama. He would have never came into picture. But Dronacharya did partiality with his son and Arjuna. He always favoured Arjuna, which led to rivalry and jealousy.

To be continued........