Unpublished Articles

I hate it when somebody tells me that I am a good human. It just surges like a wave of hatred through my whole body like a electric current. My life is being wasted living in these closed walls of ‘virtue’. Constraints! How many constraints should I adhere to? Boundaries! How many limits do I not cross? That ‘Best of Men’ – Maryada Purushottam also believed in a washer man, isn’t it? He too was desirous of that virtue, isn’t it? Like him, how many people roam with a ‘visage’ of goodness? Living in grey areas and backstabbing for selfish interests? I am fed up of these visages. Those always assuming and taking for granted the soothing shade of a tree should also get to bear the scorching heat of a desert sun.

But for it something needs to ignite – like a lone tensile flame, from a bundle of ash and should rise like a Phoenix.

When one accepts to live within boundaries, there are always problems – even of the path of truth. The Maharbharata is an evidence as to how the righteous Pandavas, had to resort of various ‘immoralities’ to win what was heralded as the battle of Truth and Virtue. ‘Everything is fair in war,’ do you say?

A hundred Kauravas and five Pandavas. Evil outnumbered good and Good outlived Evil. But who decides what is good? Who defines evil? Wasn’t Duryodhana right in desiring for a throne and fighting for it? You might point to his usage of unfair tactics. Well, but you just said “Everything is fair in war”.

The killing of Bheeshma, the slaying of Dronacharya, the deceptive use of Ghatotkach and the biggest of them – the slaying of Karna. You want more? Why did Krishna have to narrate the Gita to make Arjun fight a battle that he did not want to? Why did Krishna have to break his vow and take the Sudarshan Chakra to slay Bheeshma, when Arjun could not? Why did he have to point out Karna’s follies and ask Arjun to kill him unarmed, when he himself knew a lot more about Karna?

Behind each victory of Truth are there not such cheatings rampant? Compromise of moralities, adjustment and principles, justifications given as ‘tit for tat’? Why should the balance tip in favour of Evil for Virtue to be worshipped everywhere? Why?

If it was not so, Kunti would never have let go of her motherhood, would have left Karna to fend for himself. She would not have robbed him of his right. What kind of mother is she, who cannot let go of her virtue and accept her motherhood when she recognised Karna? What angst would a Suryaputra have gone through living life as a Sutaputra?

‘She did accept her motherhood, didn’t she?’ you would tell me. But when? When she knew he would commit a so-called crime in killing all his brothers. But wasn’t it her selfishness? And Karna in that disgraced state tells her that she would have five sons after the battle. For a single friend, he fights the battle of his life and in the end gives the ultimate sacrifice – the last gift – his own life for his mother, through empty hands!

That Karna, is the real hero of Mahabharata.

But then, he too was trying to caress his virtue. Trying to mask his sorrow and disgrace of his lowly charioteer’s heritage under the adjective of Danshoor. Why was the need to be admired by the world as a Danshoor? Did he not care for this virtue for selfishness?

I too seem to have done the same. But unlike him, I cant stretch the burden till the End. My kavach-kundalas are not available foe charity! I need an escape.

Don’t suggest me any escapes. Don’t preach. Don’t advise me. Everybody here wears a dumb spectacled look and acts as an intellectual. If I agree to that, I will come out of a pit and fall in a valley – it’s a Chakravyooha. I will search my own path. Allow me the freedom. I just need that ‘virtue’ from you.