Ripples of the Mahabharat

Description

In the Mahabharat, one of the oldest epics in the world, we see certain breaches of ethics, morality, decency, that are still present in society today. The issue with the Mahabharat is that the Kurukshetra war was narrated by Sanjay to Dhritarashtra, who already possessed preconceived notions about the participants. As a result, Sanjay’s narrations were not neutral, quite biased they were. If we, the readers of the Mahabharat, see ourselves as Dhritarashtra, the blind listener, then we too acquire a very prejudiced version of the war. The Mahabharat tells us a very one-sided version of the characters present in it, and therefore we see certain characters as ‘antagonists’ and certain others as the ‘protagonists’. I do not see the Mahabharat as a tale with ‘villains’ or ‘heroes’, those words are quite ridiculous. From my viewpoint, the Mahabharat is a tale of humans, just ordinary humans with both admirable characteristics as well as faults. It is often stated that the Kurukshetra war was a duel between ‘dharma’ and ‘adharma’. I disagree. Wars are fought in the first place because both sides think that they are right, and by winning, they wish to assert their superiority over the ‘greater rightness’. If one side already knew that they were wrong, then wars would not have taken place at all. I am a mere novice when it comes to writing, but I hope my point of view is expressed well enough through these five poems.

About The Author

Name: Dibyasree Nandy Residence: Kolkata, West Bengal School: Loreto Obtained B.Sc Honours (Physics) degree from Vidyasagar College affiliated to Calcutta University. Obtained M.Sc degree (Instrumentation Science; a part of Applied Physics) from Jadavpur University. Currently, M.Tech student (Department of Applied Electronics and Instrumentation Engineering) of Heritage Institute of Technology. I would like to dedicate this book to my parents, my paternal and maternal grandparents.