Episode 09 - Dhritrashtra is king

Recap

Last we saw Pandu in the woods, enjoying a well deserved vacation with his queens. His wives by his side, things look good for him. Meanwhile, Dhritrashtra seems to be ready to take over the throne as king himself.

The blind king

Hatya tum kar nahi sakte, aur durghatna pe tumhara vash nahi.

Synopsis

Satyavati calls for Pandu’s return to the royal court. Before returning, Madri asks Pandu to hunt a tiger for her. While hunting the tiger, Pandu accidentally shoots sage kindama and his wife who were making love. Kindama curses Pandu that the moment he tries to have children, he will die.

As penance for committing the sin of killing a sage, Pandu sentences himself into exile, with Kunti and Madri by his side. Dhritrashtra is finally crowned king.

Pandu, with his new sage friends, dreams that he cannot get into brahmlok with them because he hasn’t yet paid the debt of his ancestors. Kunti works around the curse and uses the gift that she got in her younger days to get three children as a blessing from the gods. Madri gives birth to Nakul and Sahdev.

Vasudev is born.

Discussion

Plot-wise and content-wise this episode was very bland. Not a lot to write about honestly. One thing I have noticed about Dhritrashtra is that he is not only lying to Gandhari and others, but also himself. He is clearly hurt over not getting to be king and yet acts like he is the bigger man and is happy with Pandu on the royal throne. But as the episodes go by, we can see his mask cracking. A word here, a sigh there and we can see that he so desperately wants to be king.

Little tidbit: Dhritrashtra has such powerful hearing that he can recognize who enters a room just by listening to the footsteps.

The story of sage Kindama has many variants. In this one they were in human form, but in many other versions, they were making love as a deer and a doe and Shantanu could see them as deer and shot them. I guess showing that on television during that time must not have been feasible and that’s why they changed the story.

Pandu exiling himself was the final nail in the coffin. Dhritrashtra is now king. The future of Hastinapur is now in the hands of a blind man Actually, it is worse than a blind man, it is in the hands of a weak willed man. Dhritrashtra will be the death of what the great king Bharat imagined this kingdom to be.

The first of the main characters of this saga are born now. Yudhishthir and Bhim are here. Another one is on the way. None other than shree Krishna himself will be coming to earth to witness this great battle. That takes me to the next part of this discussion. A few episodes from now will focus less on Hastinapur and more on Gokul-Mathura. Shree Krishna’s story is starting to unfold.

Notable dialogue:

Mai darti hoon ki kahin aapko rajmukut ki aadat na pad jaaye. Maine dekhne ko tyaga hai aryaputra, sochne ko nahi. Bahot si baatein bhulne yogya hi hoti hai aryaputra

To be continued