The Triumph

 You stand over the bodies of those who were your brothers,

Your teachers, your grand-uncle, your nephews. 

"They are just bodies; it's the soul that matters," Keshav told you once. 

He's right. He has to be, He's Narayan. 

You know He is.

You hover over the son of the Sun God,

Once a hated enemy, that insolent son of a charioteer, 

Now your brother, watered by your mother's tears. 

You want to throw Gandiva away, but you cling to it with desperation. 

Blood seeps through your hands as your grip tightens. 

Well, let the pain come-- you welcome it. 

It drives away the aching numbness. 

Your eyes won't weep, your throat won't scream. 

Guilt, anger, pain, loneliness-- they all surge through you as you survey the carnage. 

This was a Dharmayudha, and you won, you tell yourself, 

Even as the darkness threatens to swallow you. 

Won? No, my darling, no. 

There are no victors in a war. 

There are only survivors. 

You've lost more than you can count. 

You're injured, tired, hurt, broken. 

But you're here. 

And you can hear-- 

Shrieks and cries-- of widows, of birds of prey, of orphaned sons and daughters, of bereft mothers and fathers. 

Once more, you're desperate to feel something, 

But there is only that hungry hollowness. 

And yet--

And yet there is still someone here to comfort you. 

You feel a cool hand on your shoulder,

And when you turn your head, the Light absorbs you. 

You are numb no more. 

The Mahabharata’s Gandhari: An Inversion of Justice and Fairness

 

 

Hiya, people! I’m back with another outpouring of thoughts! I bet you missed my ramblings, yes? Well, don’t worry—this post is going to be a looong ride!

I’m currently enjoying my summer vacation, which means I have a lot of time on my hands. To use it constructively, I’ve been watching the 1988 serial Mahabharat, produced by B.R. Chopra. I already know the story [I grew up listening to, and reading, these tales], but it is nevertheless an amazing experience to watch one of our greatest epics unfold before my eyes, even if it’s on television. My entire family looks forward to these sessions, and after each episode, we discuss and analyse the important events.

These last few days, a persistent thought has been nagging at me. I never liked Gandhari--Queen of Hastinapur, wife of Dhritrashtra, and mother of the 100 Kauravas [she had one daughter too, Dushala, though she is barely remembered anymore]. In case you’ve forgotten, Gandhari is the woman who blindfolded herself for life after learning that the prince she was marrying was blind—an utterly foolish gesture, in my opinion. No one truly knows her motivations for doing so, but she explained it by saying that a good wife should always share her husband’s lot, whether it be joy or sorrow. Only twice in the entire epic does she use her sight—and I’ll come to that later.

So, her blindfold suddenly reminded me of the way Lady Justice is represented—with a blindfold. A pair of weighing scales, too, but that’s not relevant to this discussion. The concept of this physical representation of justice as a woman is ancient, possibly influenced by the fact that the Greeks, Egyptians, and Romans all saw justice as a Goddess—Themis/ Dike, Ma’at, and Justitia respectively. The weighing scales and sword have been used as Justice’s symbols since antiquity, but the blindfold, it appears, is a far more recent addition—it is recorded to have appeared around the 16^th century. It is said to have had highly satirical connotations initially—the interpretation is that law is selective, and has so many loopholes that crimes are easily committed. However, the current interpretation has evolved in an entirely new direction, painting the blindfold in a positive light and claiming that it represents the legal system’s impartiality, as well as the idea that everyone is equal in the eyes of the law [pun intended]. Well, the first interpretation smacks strongly of Gandhari, doesn’t it?

First off, it’s a really weird decision to blindfold herself— it’s a wasted opportunity to have seized power as not just Dhritrashtra’s queen, but his eyes. She probably did not have the foresight to realize this, and thus set in motion a lot of events that could have been prevented. I despise Dhritrashtra—he was physically as well as metaphorically blind, and using it as an excuse besides—but his physical blindness was a birth defect. Gandhari’s ‘blindness’ was a conscious choice, and both she and Dhritrashtra paid for their obstinacy and blind adoration of their sons [you can decide whether the pun was intended or not] dearly.

Gandhari made an innumerable number of mistakes during her time as queen and mother. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say she was no good at either of these things—interpretations can vary, but I always considered her a weak, vacillating woman, never truly knowing what she wanted and always giving in to the audacious and downright unrighteous demands of her sons, especially her eldest, Duryodhan. When Duryodhan was born, he brayed like a donkey—an extremely inauspicious sign—and Dhritrashtra’s half-brother, Vidur, who was also the Prime Minister of Hastinapur, advised that the child be abandoned or put to death immediately, because surely he would grow up to wreak havoc on the dynasty—a very clear foreshadowing of what was to come. Now, I can’t really fault parents for doting on a new-born babe, but it would certainly have been in their best interests to have listened to Vidur’s words, especially because the warning was so graphic. Instead, they spoilt Duryodhan rotten, turning him into the vile, cruel, arrogant man we all know and hate.

Gandhari may have had hidden ambitions and a deep-seated resentment for Kunti and her five shining sons—all just speculation, of course, although she masked it by loudly declaiming that her sons were unrighteous and that she loved the Pandavas very much, and Kunti was her dear sister. I don’t think she was fooling anyone—the day she blindfolded herself, the day she and her husband chose to ignore Vidur’s warning, was the day she doomed herself.

Gandhari failed in her duty as a mother because she wilfully ignored the brewing signs of discord and discontent—she knew Duryodhan and her brother, Shakuni, hated the Pandavas and were trying to kill them through a list of long and complicated conspiracies, but she pretended to be completely out of the loop. She began using Dhritrashtra’s excuse—that she couldn’t see. Goodness, the pair of them—they were blind, not deaf or brainless! They were wearing this infuriating banner of ‘helplessness’, and that’s why we blame them.

Gandhari, as a woman, a queen, and a mother, should have made more efforts to prevent Draupadi’s disrobing in court. She should have given her horrible husband a good tongue-lashing, punished her sons severely, and comforted Draupadi, but she did not. The only reason she stepped in was because Draupadi threatened to curse her sons; she said something along the lines of “I know this is horrendous, daughter, and unforgivable, but I beg you, do not curse my sons. They may be unrighteous, but they are still my sons.” Exactly, foolish woman, they are your sons. And you’re going to suffer heavily for letting such a shameful and horrible event happen.

During the Kurukshetra war, she was lost and helpless. It’s said that when Duryodhan came to her for her blessings, she responded with ‘may the righteous always win,’ but it’s clear that she was still rooting for her unrighteous sons. Towards the end of the war, despairing over the loss of 99 of her sons, she angrily cursed Lord Krishna when He came to visit her—insisting that He could’ve stopped the war had He wanted to [He did try, by the way], she declared that His Yadava clan would perish in the same brutal way that hers did. This struck me as absolutely ridiculous, but well, I don’t expect intelligence or sensibility from Gandhari. In a bid to protect Duryodhan from facing certain defeat and death at Bheem’s hands, she commanded him to bathe in the holy waters of the River Ganga and then appear before her stark naked. Lord Krishna thwarted her plans, however—He waylaid Duryodhan, convincing him that a grown man could not appear before his mother so immodestly.

Suitably ashamed, Duryodhan wrapped a banana leaf around his thighs before presenting himself in front of Gandhari. For the first time since her marriage, she took off her blindfold, concentrating all her devotion to Lord Shiva in her glance and giving Duryodhan a body made of steel—except his thighs, which were covered and protected from her gaze. This would cost her and Duryodhan a heavy price, as Bheem broke his thighs and killed him the very next day.

The second time her eyes play a significant role is when, after the war, the Pandavas approached her to seek her blessings. It is said that when Yudhishthir, trembling with guilt and fear, stood before her, her blindfold shifted a bit, and her hot, vengeful gaze landed on his feet, turning his pretty toenails blue. Had Lord Krishna not been watching, her eyes could’ve wreaked more havoc, but overwhelmed with her own emotions, she began sobbing and reluctantly blessed the Pandavas.

After this, Gandhari more or less faded into the background. Unable to stay on in the palace, she quickly retired to the forest with Dhritrashtra, Kunti, and Vidur. This may have been an attempt to save her dignity-- maybe she just couldn’t stand being offered charity in the palace where she’d once reigned as queen, and Kunti and her sons were the supplicants. Or perhaps she was haunted by nightmares of her sons’ deaths, and her own silent, guilt-ridden complicity in their behaviour. Who knows, really?

Hence, Gandhari is the quintessential satirical representation of blindfolded Justice—selective, wilfully ignorant, weak-willed. She may have had extreme power in her eyes, but ultimately she was unable to change anything, and she and Dhritrashtra are held largely responsible for their sons’ arrogance and cruelty. What use is such a life?

What do you all think? Food for thought, right?