Mahabharata: The New Beginning

choosen one (2)

It's not like that only males are so heavyweight and fantastic, women are no less capable eg.
Kunti, biological daughter of Surasen and adopted daughter of King kunti bhoj of Kunti bhoj Kingdom. Kunti bhoj of bhoj- yadavas tribe, being part of of Kunti kingdom next to Avanti Kingdom are one of the 18 tribes which fled to West under the fear of millitary might of Overlord of aryavart jarasandha. Kunti having experience of war, death and changing political dynamics at young age; through his planning, hard work and devotion to his duties not only moved King kunti bhoj becoming beloved princess of kingdom but also powerful sage durvasa. By his Grace kunti got hold of very unique but mysterious force, with which she can call upon 5 Devas for obtaining son through niyog. Kunti, being strong hearted lady, didn't believe in others. So for assurance, she used her power on Surya Dev on one fine morning. We all know how story progressed, Surya Dev blessed kunti with sun like son despite strong protest and resistence from Princess of Kunti bhoj. Kunti, lady ruthless to others and more so to herself, abandoned the new born in streams of ganga the very moment, in order to keep her and her father's reputation untainted. She even had Idea to kill her maid Priyamvada but to avoid any suspicion being raised by her murder, She choose to bind her(maid) with herself(kunti) with rest of her life, to avoid leaking of secrets, by revoking her(maid) status of free woman and downgrading her(maid) to bond woman but in lieu of her(kunti) appeasement policy, She provided her(maid) family with enough wealth and elevated their social status to merchant class through her(kunti) overt covert operations ( In days of Mahabharata, social mobility was impossible so being granted social elevation from Royal family himself is nothing less than boon from Devas). Through her(kunti) carrot and stick method, she completely controlled her(maid) psychology & made her(maid) surrender to herself (Kunti) wholeheartedly and completely blocked possibility of leakage of any secrets. After her marriage with Pandu, who was weak in health, kunti avoided having any intimacy with him through her planning and soft Power eg. convincing Pandu to leave for war on first night itself etc, to avoid not only loosing status of queen due to Pandu's death because of indulgence (society at that time was very superstitious and narrow minded and Kunti wanted to avoid the possibility of her image being smeared by accusation that she is also responsible for pandu's death)but also birth of weak, frail and genetically challenge children. When pandu remarried Madri, princess of Madra kingdom, Kunti completely lost even last shread of love for Pandu. But Kunti is Kunti, she completely made Madri psychologically subservient to herself through her methods blocking possibility of encroachment of her rights and powers. I (Mr. Prakhar kumar) have very bold conjecture that somehow there was shadow of Kunti behind the curse of Pandu( there might be possibility of deception that pandu was made to believe that sexual pleasure will be cause of his death which Pandu himself took as curse)  and/or spread of this information that if he approach women with lust then he will die. Kunti wasn't concerned with inability to have heir as she had unique and mysterious power granted by sage durvasa; tried and tested to be 100% effective. Everything was set and obstacles on her path to more power were almost destroyed but she underestimated the cunningness of vidur and adamancy of bheesm for royal blood as heir(No one other than Kunti was aware of her boon). Everyone knows what happened afterwards Pandu resigned to forest and Kunti and Madri followed him to forest as dutiful and pativrata wives and dhritarashtra ascended to throne.
Even later in Mahabharata, she ensured yudhishthir 's right to throne, Made Krishna help her sons, she lived in hastinapur palace and ensured that bheesm, vidur, drona etc were to favour the Pandavas at least psychologically; prevented dhritarashtra from going against her sons with all his might; even made Karn promise to not kill her sons....and many more.

Whilst you may think that Kunti is the only one such lady in the great Epic, well you are wrong, princess of Panchal, to be called fire born, Draupadi; the holy, pure, scared and enormously gorgeous; Brave, screwd, adamant and egoistic lady. Classic living example of beauty with brains. She wanted to marry vasudev Shri Krishna, the most perfect man in her eyes and mind. After denial from Shri Krishna, she completely threw the Idea of marriage out of her mind immediately and choose to befriend him devotedly, making her relation with Shri Krishna to reach a whole new level. She even named herself krishnaa. On the suggestion of Shri Krishna, she married Arjuna, renounced as greatest Archer in whole aryavart. She insulted Karn being suta son/low born and not worthy of her to stop him from messing with her plan. She was happy with her marriage until under the order of her mother in law Kunti; she was forced to marry all Pandavas. She knew immediately that Kunti has played her game very well. She not only stopped jealousy and hatred between Pandavas over her from getting out of control but also demonstrated her(Kunti) unparalleled control over her sons; reminding her to be aware of her position in the house on very first meeting itself. Draupadi, being warrior and independent woman, being denied right to choose and her consent being treated as nothing, felt insulted and challenged. She through her wisdom, Love and planning began to dissolve the influence of Kunti over her sons. Plans were going on right track until she got the news of marriage of Arjun with Subhadra, Princess of Dwarka and beloved sister of Shri Krishna. She was angry but made herself calm down and welcomed the newlyweds grandly and treated Subhadra as sister; partially due to her friendship with Krishna and partially due to the fact that she felt genuine respect from Subhadra as her elder. Draupadi showed her generousity, tolerance and big heartedness not only to Pandavas, Shri Krishna and others but also to Kunti telling her that she is no worse than her handling such situations. But she got completely enraged when she heard that yudhishthir treated her as commodity in game of chausar; gambled and lost her to Kauravas. She felt deeply insulted and realised how far she was from her absolute control over Pandavas. Rest is the story we know, she defended her dignity, fought like lioness against dussassan and prayed to her friend to help her to defend her Ashmita. Later on during exile in forest, she through her efforts and devotion to her duties got immense control over Pandavas and guided them to prepare to take revenge and lost dignity, placing herself as spiritual mentor. She became last fuse to completely detonate the powder keg laid by Shri Krishna in whole Aryavart. Before that when Pandavas married various women, she although very angry but choose to sacrifice for larger goal. She managed the Harem like expert manager, exercised control over Pandavas and their back garden, completely blocking any theat to her rights and her rise to power.

There are so many characters and there are so much to speak about them. Some things people will accept, for some things they don't care but some things will make people enraged. Of all the characters, I(Mr. Prakhar kumar) have some extra interest or soft edge, if you like to frame in that way, about duryodana.
Duryodana, eldest Son of King dhritarashtra, Prince of hastinapur, assassination attempts against him began on the very day he was born. Birth story about him and his brothers is also interesting. It is said that Queen gandhari was pregnant for almost 2 years, even then what came out of her womb was described as lump of flesh. Under rescue operation of top surgeons and Ayurvedacharyas of that era for whole 2-3 month, duryodana and his 99 brothers were born. Congenital birth defects and extreme medical complications during birth alone tested his will to life severely, on top of that not only he fought for his life against the ill effects of bad weather on his birth day but also against the schemes of politician and warrior mahamantri vidur and his allies in court, as they sentenced him dead by lebelling him cursed and one with bad omen who will bring destruction to hastinapur due to being born on the day of extremely bad weather. Dhritarashtra, who had lost all his hope and started considering himself the cursed one, was overjoyed listening to cry of his child, immediately became angry listening to slanders of vidur and others. Even under strong opposition of so many people, he saved duryodana from deadly clutches of others. We all know what happened afterwards, vidur always reminded bheesm of all these things whenever he got chance. Under his constant efforts, Bheesm believed his words completely as he was disgusted of duryodana all his life. Vidur even spread rumours of dhritarashtra being blind in the love of his sons and lebelled him(dhritarashtra) partial, a wonderful political move, so that whenever he( dhritarashtra) take decision in favour of his sons even if they were right, he(vidur) can nullify it's effects to the extent to use it to his(vidur) advantage. All these were witnessed by Duryodhana and hatred took seed in his heart; so when he saw vidur, bheesm and other favouring Pandavas, he immediately made Pandavas his enemy. Being a warrior, duryodana knew his weakness, so he made every effort to strengthen his weakness eg. treated his brothers as his own sons and parts of his body, Appointed shakuni as his advisor, befriended Karna and aswathama, became disciple of Balram etc. but as all know that his efforts to ascend the throne were in vain in the end. Afterall, due to various circumstances and situations, he stood opposite to the greatest politician, behind the scene Boss of aryavart and under the operation of Shri Krishna, his dreams were shattered. Duryodana is example of a true friend, excellent brother, having qualities of good monarch and much more. He fought against the social rules and society for Karna despite knowing that his actions would incur him huge loss to his path to throne. He fought against the Bheem for his brothers despite being weaker as he saw his brothers being beaten mercilessly by bheem and elders took it as child's mischief. He expressed his strong dissatisfaction with dronacharya for his cruelty against Ekalavya, knowing that his move will place himself against the dronacharya psychologically and he will loose his support and many more. Sometimes I (Mr. Prakhar kumar) feel that if I ever got chance to be duryodana like those time travel stories on Wattpad, I can do much better not only for himself but also his subjects, making his names to be written in golden letters in annals of history making him immortal. Oh god!!! I feel so excited all of sudden as if my idea will become reality the very next moment.