Introduction: Characters

Before I start with the story of the Mahabharata, I'd like to share some basic outline about the key characters in the way I have imagined them. I think this will help the readers to understand my version of the story better since It's being told through these characters. They are the ones who narrate the entire story in bits and parts and since there are no such thing as an unbiased narrator I think a basic introduction about the characters are important.

Yudhisthir

Yudhisthir is the hero of the Mahabharata. It is his story. He is the reflection of us, common people, who are not as outstanding warrior as Arjun, nor possess the monstrous strength of Bhim, goes through moral dilemma regarding the choices we have to make. 

A friend once told me, "how can you say Yudhisthir is the reflection of common man? There's nobody who are so truthful."

Very true, but in my opinion, like morality truth is also relative. Stating mere facts is not always telling the truth. It's like Stephen Fry once said," We want to tell the truth but facts come in the way."

If we look at Yudhisthir's character we see the good king, the troubled human, the hopeless gambler, impressionable commoner...

The game of dice

But above all these what really makes him the hero is the fact that he has to take his own decisions. Vidur, Krishna and all his counsel men at best can only give him suggestions, at the end of the day he is the one who has to take the decision. The decisions that will decide his future, the future of his brothers and the future of his world and like us he is confused when it comes to take a decisions, like us sometimes he makes decisions out of compulsion against his will, like us he feebly tries to defend them against strong opposition of the decision... and in the very end it is he who has to face the ultimate dilemma when he sees his own brothers are in hell and all that he fought against in his life is there to greet him at the gate of heaven.

However, having said this, I must remind that I am about to tell the story in multiple narrative and in each narrative the narrator have their own views and thoughts about the characters and above all, like we all love to believe that we are the hero of our own story the characters in here are no different. In their world, their story they are all heroes... in their own way. In an epic there are different levels of battles the character goes through, and I believe in someway every character in the Mahabharata becomes a hero at some point of time, irrespective of their ultimate motives.

Unfortunately that's all for now, will come back as soon as possible, do share your views about the blogs at the comment box below. Happy reading.