Episode#75
The next day when the news of Duryodhana downfall and ultimate death reached the Royal Court, his mother Gandhari fainted on the spot with the trauma! Her husband King Dhritarashtra and her 100 daughter-in-laws were devastated by the calamity that befell on them. Especially, Duryodhana wife Bhanumati was totally heart-broken, she had earlier lost her son Laxmana Kumar in the battle and now it was her husband! Her daughter Laxmani was hit by the worst traumatic condition since she has lost not only her brother and father but her beloved soul-mate too.
The great war of Mahabharata is an overwhelming, horrendous and appalling depiction of the emotional devastation that befalls on the unfortunate women who lose their ever precious men in the war. It focuses upon the dichotomy of the male and female elements of war. It vividly portrays the dreadful consequences of war on humans, particularly on its women-folk and children!
The main stay of Mahabharata boils down in the end to the cruel irony of human fate where the self-reliant and supposedly righteous men stoop down to the lowest levels in order to gratify their intense feelings of hatred - at the cost of the very women whom they had loved and vowed to protect...! But simultaneously the wicked distortion cannot be overlooked. The sight of women wailing over death and devastations of war are in sharp contrast to the situation prior few weeks, where women, with pride, bid farewell to their men marching smartly towards Kurukshetra as possible martyrs! How majestic and courageous they had appeared carrying death on their sleeves, blowing hundreds of conch-shells as they marched ahead!
Gandhari somehow, managed to revive mostly owing to her ambivalent nature, her inner strength surfaced when she brooded upon his sons evil design that led to their destruction; sealed her lips and submitted to the evil influence of her brother Sakuni; grieved for the fate of her blind husband; lamented for Duryodhana's wife Bhanumati and her grandson Laxmana Kumar. Her sorrows knew no bounds, she wept over all her son's. Her tears did not get any respite and her distraught daughter-in-law and the horrors that befell on the Kuru family.
Gandhari sobbed, "Yes my sons were villain, and we desire our children to be heroes and martyrs and not to be villain or terrorist, heroes or villains; martyrs or terrorist, they were my children and I shall cry for all my children - like all mother weep for their children. Pandavas gambled in the most shameful way - making Draupadi a pawn for their kingdom, but they were punished with thirteen years of humiliating exile and hence they were deemed sinless before entering battlefield of Kurukshetra. On other hand, Kauravas had not received any punishment to enable them to wash away their sonic publicly disrobing a helpless Draupadi, to make matter worse, the Kauravas refused to return their kingdom even after thirteen years of Pandavas exile, despite Vasudev Krishna's intervention, they continued plotting and playing malicious game against the Pandavas and finally had to be killed for righteousness or establishing Dharma at the right time and in the right way."
"I weep for Abhimanyu who was killed by his uncles in the war of Kurukshetra and for the five sons of Draupadi who were mercilessly slaughtered by Aswasthama." Exclaimed a vehement Gandhari...!
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