Mahabharata: The New Beginning

Choosen one (1)

Delhi, capital of Largest democracy and 5th Largest economy in the world. India has achieved remarkable success since it's independence, unachievable by any democracy in over 75 years only and roadmap and planning for few of these remarkable results were dominated by an excellent person. His resume is filled with Extraordinary achievements made during his tenure, to speak a few; eg.

- During his tenure as Secretary at ministry of foreign affairs, India, signed Historic nuclear deal with United States, in a remarkable bilateral relationship ending India's long nuclear isolation with world and India emerged as recognised nuclear power on international stage. Why is it so remarkable? Well during cold war era India formed NAM alliance but signed streategic defence alliance with USSR in 1971 for it's defence needs( India lost Indo-china war in 1962, India helped in partition and formation of Bangladesh from east pakistan and India was gearing up to conduct Nuclear test rejecting NPT and CTBT) which led to India-US relationship to fell to freezing point, after 1998-99 successful nuclear test, ban was initiated against India under leadership of USA, under these circumstances normalcy was restored and closer ties were form with Washington while pakistan was still in strategic alliance with them.

- During his tenure at ministry of commerce and trade, action oriented plan was launched to boost exports of India resulting in 15% increase in single year. Committee under his leadership submitted roadmap to achieve USD 100 billion agricultural exports in 3 years.

- Under his efforts at ministry of social justice and empowerment, Govt. of India launched social upliftment program and scholarship schemes for both students in India and overseas.

- Low cost housing complex plan was proposed by him and he was appointed as special adviser to resolve the conflict and rising public opinion and controversy over New poverty line proposed by Tendulkar committee. He alongwith several other experts outrightly rejected the report and proposed ministry's own poverty guidelines to achieve balance between elevated poverty line and state's finances.

- Under his leadership, at ministry of labour and employment, New labour act was submitted and passed at parliament ( through the hands of minister, of course) and efforts were made to normalise and extend the benefits of social security to unorganised sector.

- During his tenure at ministry of law and justice, report for overhaul and change of criminal laws made under colonial rules was proposed along with suggestions regarding New laws catering new reality and challenges.

And many more not only that he also served as Magistrate to pryagraj, Varanasi, Chandauli and Gajiabad. You might be wondering, so many districts, so many ministries, how is that possible. Well, Man is ' Jack of all teade' type, his intelligent and sewred mind has provided him an advantage over others. He has excellent hand in negotiating deals and mediation over conflict. His keen political smell has given him ability to manoeuvre between changing political regime and public wind although these skills give him courage to fight against more powerful people who do not conform to his ideas and endanger public welfare and undermine democracy, equality and rule of law, also landed him many difficulties and setbacks, even to several assassination attempts has been made against him. Being good in negotiation and mediation, he is quite flexible, can bend and strech based on situation,but is also very headstrong when things dip below his bottom line. At the end of his career, he was deprived of Central secretary post due to joint lobbying of some powerful businessmen with government forming govt- business nexus. And what is his bottom line... well he is staunch believer of democratic socialism in socio political landscape while being believer of capitalism with market oversight. He hates crony capitalism, Monopolies and govt- business nexus. During his tenure at ministry of commerce and trade, he was very vocal of government intervention in market economy especially during turbulent times and under his persuasion and constant efforts various regulations were released for government oversight of market economy and limit the formation and development of Monopolies and crony capitalism. This alongwith his several other doing has offended Elite class and out of their several counterattacks last one succeeded.
So, who is our hero and where is he, what he doing now??
Mr. Prakhar kumar, ex. IAS officer, now lives in 2 bhk flat in Delhi, which he loaned during his career when house rates were low. He has paid all his loans now lives on pension. He is currently...... dozing off.... leaning on reclining chair while his face is covered with one of the newspaper pages while several others were dancing on floor under airflow created by fan hanging on ceiling. Room is filled with errie silent except sound of fanning of electric fan. Why is flat so deserted, well thanks to his one of the bottom lines. What is that? well he is celibate. Story behind this is interesting. Being Jack of all trade which he is, he has quite good knowledge of Ramayana, great Epic Mahabharata and Bhagwat Gita. Also dabbled in veda and upnishad and ayurveda. Don't get me wrong but he doesn't believe in God, to be specific he doesn't believe in narration and characteristics described, of God, by ancient texts and people of his time though he believes that there is creator who has created this worderful and marvelous universe but doesn't have all the characteristics generally described by people and definitely have some characteristics which people don't describe often or at all. His theory for explanation of marvelous and magical deeds of characters in Ramayana and Mahabharata and some of the ancient texts is very humanist and pragmatic, at least sounds so, that character may have been real and must have done very hard work coupled with their intelligent, foresight and advanced knowledge which are not available to common public, they may have been able to achieve some such wonderful deeds while most of them are exaggeration made by people of later era while adding some metaphysical and supernatural elements when codifing these events into texts to achieve the purpose of deitification and mystification of these characters to achieve the their goals.

While having these thoughts regarding ancient scriptures and texts, he sees ayurveda as traditional medicinal knowledge of people of that era while believing that some of the important knowledge has been lost in later period. During his study of Ayurveda, he came across a sentence which describes the life of true celibate being as long as 400 years. He thought that, well I have nothing to loose just some extra effort and a sacrifice not much meaningful to me, even if fact and figures were exaggerated a bit, at least 120-150 years of life can secured, so why not try it. In thirst of longer life, which he values quite a lot, so now he is alone, albeit quite healthy and energetic but not to the point he expected.

Prakhar's pov
During my free time after retirement, I revisited several of my collections especially ancient scriptures , texts and holy books. one of my favourite is the great Epic Mahabharata, due to it's depiction being closest to human nature, moral, character filled with politics, diplomacy, struggle for power, tactics, war and deciet. Everyone who has read it will feel it's familiarity to own surrounding. I have some fascination and strong interest towards some characters eg. Vasudev Shri Krishna, greatest politician, orator and one of the greatest warriors of Aryavart. His political genius lies in the fact that he single handedly through his sheer talent and  intellect overturned the whole aryavart. He alongwith his allies which were nothing more than his followers established a resistant militant group which they called holy army, with the excuse of dharmasthapana, they waged war directly or sneakily from Magadha to chedi, from singhupradesh to Matsya etc; establish various marriage alliances, replaced whole world order, which was made of various dynasties and leaders in more complex balance hidden in dark as well as open in light under various streategic defence and marital alliance, established for centuries with new simple and crude world order with solid United front centered around hastinapur under leadership of Pandavas of which vasudev Shri Krishna was sole spritual mentor. Using Pandavas as knife and hastinapur as shield, he United whole aryavart under one leader and him being behind the secene boss, replaced old and decaying tree with new blood. After war with the vision of new political thinking, new societal structure, newer economic system and idea of conquest outside Bharatvarsh he placed his hope in pandavs and hastinapur. Well as we all know, ideas remained ideas and reality hit him hard.

Another one, at the helm of hastinapur politics, Vidur; one of the greatest politician and tactician in Aryavart , born from bond women (dasi) of queen satyawati, parishrami and vyasa, son of queen satyawati and sage parasara, who was denied right to throne by bheesm for not having royal blood in his veins, was discriminated, abused and taunted by others as daasi putra, by his intellect, personality and hard work moved bheesm during his education and became confidant of Son of ganga and under his set of plans dhritarashtra, despite being strongest amongst the three, was denied throne and lebeled as unfit while pandu being weak in health and war minded sat on throne with his help. He himself became prime minster of hastinapur with the help of bheesm. Over the year, he took over the administration wholly especially when pandu resigned to go forest and dhritarashtra ascend the throne, through his soft power he became one of the few people being closest to dhritarashtra.

Another one being Son of ganga, Bheesm himself. Born from King Shantanu, raised and educated in Dev lok, never got to see his father, until one day some Stranger came to him and designated himself as his father. Happy with fatherly love he got from Shantanu, he worked hard to make him worthy as Son, as well as Prince of hastinapur. His talent, valour, temperament and will moved Not a only his father, his subjects but also ministers of courtroom and Royal teacher became his staunch supporter to the throne. Everything was going well until one day he got message from ministers that his father is sad and became uninterested in performing his kingly duties. I somehow have a doubt that Being as great and worthy monarch as Shantanu, in control over his emotions and facial expressions, how his emotions got leaked in public space like courtroom and that to for such sufficient time that most of the ministers took notice of that. Bheesm who has thirst for fatherly love was unable to sit and directly marched to his father and his great Father, intentionally/ unintentionally mentioned him whole drama of satyawati and Dashraj. And we all know what happened afterwards, driven by impulse and fear of losing his father's love, he took an arduous oath depriving himself from throne. Well after some time, seeing his father totally emerged himself in pleasure of newly wed, he took over administration for smooth continuation. After death of his father, seeing weak and unworthy people sitting on throne, he started to spread his influence in common people and whole aryavart by showing his strength, valour and might through brutal military conquest at every opportunity he got. From abduction of pricess of gandhar by brutal destruction of gandhar and his allies, to abduction of princess of Kashi by ravaging army of Kashi, Salva and other kingdoms invited at Swayamvar. He fought right and left to establish himself as greatest warrior and by defeating Bhargava parshuram, his establish himself as undefeated and infallible.