Thursday, October 1, 2015

Storytelling Week 6: The Regret of a Future King

Yudhistira wept over his fallen family members.  He and his brothers had committed fratricide on a grand scale because of the wickedness of a few individuals.  “What will I do now that the war is over, that our family has been nearly destroyed?  I wish that I had known that Karna was my brother.  I would have gone to him and had him become our king.  How shall I repent for this?” thought Yudhistira.

His brothers were with him and Yudhistira said to him “Our family, who had become our enemies, which we killed, has been granted the right to go to heaven.  However, it does not grant me peace.  Arjuna I will go out into the wilderness and seek renunciation.”

At these words Yudhistira’s brothers were frustrated and rightfully so they thought.  They had endured years of misfortune and they had steeled their resolve to kill their family members.  Now, Yudhistira wanted to shirk his duty and go into solitude.  Arjuna said to him, “We have sacrificed so much for this; we cannot turn back from the path before us.  To turn back now would make those that had died die a worthless death.” 

Then Bhima said to him, “If you speak so about what we have done, it would have been better not to have waged war against Duryodhana.  We should have let Dhritarashtra have his way with us instead.  If not for Dhritarahtra, Duryodhana and all our family would be at peace.  You have a duty to your family and all of your followers; your cast that you were born with cannot be changed.  You have to take up the crown and rule this nation. 

Then the younger brothers, Nakula and Sahadeva, spoke to Yudhistira saying, “We have stood by your side all these years and we went into battle for you knowing that we would be fighting our family.  Do not dishonor those that have died by running away.  Dhritarashtra is probably happy thinking that he was able to defeat you in the end.”

After all this Yudhistira was still did not think that he should be king and that he should go into the forest and seek renunciation.  Therefore, Krishna spoke to Yudhistira, “Disregard your own feelings on this matter.  You have wallowed around for long enough.  You cannot think about only yourself you have to act for all that have fought and died and you have to think about all the people that need to be led.”


So Yudhistira decided to become king and led the kingdom for years.

Draupadi and Pandavas.jpg
The five Pandava brothers and Draupadi (Source: wikipedia)

Author's Note:  I read The Mahabharata by R. K. Narayan.  For this week I decided to do a variation on the scene were Yudhistira does not want to become king anymore and is saddened by the loss of his family.  For my version I followed the original version for the most part and added in my own version of the conversation which I think got to the root of the problem.  I also added a little spin to the tail by making Duryodhana a good person.

Bibliography:

The Mahabharata: A Shortened Modern Prose Version of the Indian Epic by R. K. Narayn (1978)

4 comments:

  1. Hi, Ethan!

    I really enjoyed your formal writing style. By styling your story like this, you truly kept a lot of the original integrity of the epics like we read them. I feel like your addition could easily just be added in! I also liked how you delved more into the family dynamics! It made these larger than life characters seem very relatable. Everyone knows what its like to endure family/friend/professional disagreements, even if they're not about ruling a kingdom! Excellent work! :)

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  2. Hi, Ethan! I really enjoyed your story. I like how you kept fairly true to the original story but added the conversation to get to the root of the problem. This is a very excellent story telling technique. I really agree with Audra's comment that you did a wonderful job with making these characters relatable. All to often these epic stories are so hard for us to relate to. Overall, great job!.

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  3. Ethan, your version of the original story was really good! The extra portions that you added to the original story was a descriptive touch to your story. The dialogue was a good way to improve your point in the story. And the image you chose was a great descriptive picture of what the story was about. Good job!

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  4. This was a very interesting story to read, I liked reading your version of how things went down after the war with Yudhistira becoming king. You did a very good job setting up the dialogue between the brothers on trying to convince Yudhistira to become king. It helped set up imagery of the whole scene and made it more enjoyable to read.

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