In this episode, we’re back to the main storyline of the Mahabharata. We’ll see the Pandav and Kaurav children trying to get an education. At Kripacharya University!
I recommend checking out the previous Mahabharat stories, which I have linked in the show notes. But here’s a refresher.
Bhisma, the crown prince of Hastinapur, gave up the throne and promised never to have any children of his own, so that his father could marry Satyavati and her children could rule instead.
Unfortunately, tragedy after tragedy struck the family. Satyavati’s children themselves passed away childless. Satyavati, Bhishma, and Satyavati’s two daughters-in-law Ambika and Ambalika were the only surviving members of the apparently doomed dynasty. And that’s when Vyas – the author sort of jumped out from behind the metaphorical curtain and yelled surprise and that he was Satyavati’s son. He helped continue the family, and 3 boys were born. Pandu, Dhritarashtra, and Vidhur.
Pandu had health issues all his life. Dhritarashtra was born blind, and Vidhur though perfectly healthy was ineligible because his mother was a servant girl and not a princess.
Pandu was crowned Emperor, but not for long. He killed a deer by accident who turned out to be a rishi. The crime was serious enough that he gave up his throne to his blind brother and retired with his wives Kunti and Madri into the mountains.
Kunti and Madri had 5 sons with a little divine help. Kunti’s dark little secret was that she had had the same divine help before her marriage to Pandu, and that had resulted in a baby – Karna being born.
Dhritarashtra’s wife, Gandhari, by the way, had permanently blindfolded her eyes in an act of rebellion after finding out she had been commanded to marry a blind man.
She had also undergone significantly more challenges than Kunti’s quick and easy baby order service from the gods. But in the end, she was blessed with over a hundred children.
That’s what we’ve covered so far. Today’s we’ll see some incidents in the life of these children.
Let’s start in Hastinapur, where Bhishma was in a happy mood, even as he was walking over to the eternally pessimistic Dhritarashtra’s chambers. Why should Bhishma not be happy? For the first time it seemed that Hastinapur’s future was secured. There were over a hundred potential successors to the throne – since his hasty promise several decades ago it had been hard to find even a single successor!
It was such a welcome thought that maybe Bhishma didn’t have to keep this whole protecting the throne thing going for too long. Truth be told he was looking forward to retirement. He was just a grandfather by relation to the newly born kids, but because of an age gap, a generation older. To make matters worse, a lifetime of worry had aged him terribly. Not surprising considering he was practically running the empire. Sure, Dhritarashtra was sitting on the throne, but that’s about all his contribution was – sitting.
Bhishma whistled a tune and entered Dhritarashtra’s chambers and warmly greeted the Emperor and his wife.
“So Dhritarashtra my boy, what can I do for you? Children are all doing well and all that?”
“It’s all fine now, thanks to you! I wish Dhritarashtra had acted earlier on your suggestion of setting up more diaper factories in the Empire. With a hundred children naturally supply couldn’t keep up with demand”
“A hundred and two” Dhritarashtra corrected automatically.
“Not to mention the 5 Pandava children,” Gandhari added “but then they are used to jungle survival already. They managed to make their own diapers with oversize leaves”
That reminded Bhishma that maybe it was time to check on the Pandavas occasionally as well. It had been a while since he had spoken to Kunti. In fact, now that he thought of it he hadn’t spoken to her since the day she returned from the forest with 5 children in tow.
He had obviously done the civil thing, and had her set up with her own chambers in the palace, and her children were treated like the princes they were.
That also reminded him – he meant to discuss with Vidhur and Dhritarashtra about the whole succession thing. Like how Pandu was the King and he’d transferred his powers to Dhritarashtra. So, should Pandu and Kunti’s oldest child Yudhishthir be the next in line, or should it be Duryodhan? It’s been on my to-do list for a while. I must get to it, Bhishma thought.
Meanwhile Gandhari and Dhritarashtra were going on and on about… what were they even talking about. Schools? Ratings? Grades it seemed like. He didn’t want to give the impression he hadn’t been listening. So he jumped in with a comment about how awesome his own school had been – he had had one-on-one instruction from the best of the best.
Gandhari and Dhritarashtra paused for a second. And then Gandhari took the plunge. “So we’d like to get them into something like that”
“Get whom? Into what?” asked Bhishma puzzled
“Our children. Into the kind of schooling you had” Gandhari replied.
“Sure, sure! Just tell me which one of your hundred and two and I’ll see to it that they get a really quality education. I’ll write them a glowing letter of recommendation. I know it’s your choice and I know we are a patriarchal society and all that, but I really hope you pick your daughter – Dushala. She’s exceptionally bright, you know”
“We kinda want to do that for all”
“That’s not how one-on-one education works,” Bhishma explained. “We can only pick one student, it’s in the name too”
“It doesn’t have to be one-on-one,” Gandhari replied. She seemed to be calling all the shots here. “I do want them all to learn from the same professors. But not Dushala. We are, as you said, a patriarchal society. We can’t afford to look too progressive!”
“If you prefer that you’ll be sacrificing quality for quantity” Bhishma replied. “At a hundred children, ideally we’d just start our own University. Maybe get Kripacharya to run it”
“Kripacharya? You mean one of the babies that your father rescued back in Episode 68?”
“Bingo” replied Bhishma. “But he’s not still a baby or anything. Because that would be very weird. He’s older than me too. He’s our weapons expert now. He can probably train the children”
“If he’s what we get for a hundred children, what would have happened if we had a thousand” speculated Dhritarashtra
“Self-education. Learning videos on youtube probably” Bhishma replied. “Why? Are you planning on having another 900 kids?” he asked tentatively
“God forbid!” exclaimed Gandhari. “898 more children, not 900” corrected Dhritarashtra
“I’ll put it to Kripacharya. We may need to give him some incentives” Bhishma said
“Well remind him that if your father hadn’t taken care of him, he would probably have been eaten up by wild beasts” Gandhari suggested.
So Bhishma did, the next time he met Kripacharya.
But it turned out not to have been such a good idea to remind Kripacharya that he owed the royal family his life.
When he found out he was being asked to teach a hundred children, Kripacharya remarked that he would much rather be eaten by wild beasts.
It took a ton of subtle diplomacy from Bhishma to finally convince Kripacharya to teach the children. Basically, Bhishma said Kripacharya needed to just focus on Duryodhan, Yudhishtir, Arjun and Bheem. Everyone else are followers, not leaders.
“So you’re including the Pandava children? I thought you said a hundred. But with the Pandavas, it’s one hundred and seven!”
“No, 106, ignore Dushala. And like I said, it’s not 106. It’s 4! Just 4 children. Besides, you’ll get teaching assistants and all. We’ll arrange for some substitute teachers also so you can take time off. Also it’s only weapons training. Other things like Mathematics and Reading they can learn from Kumon or something”
Kripacharya was still hesitant but with a significant bonus per child, and a hundred teaching assistants he finally relented.
Things went okay for several years. At least, Bhishma thought they were okay.
One day though, Bhishma decided to pay a surprise visit to Kripacharya University. When he got there, the place was in shambles. Children were playing by themselves.
Bhima was resting by a tree after having eaten what seemed to be several servings of lunch. No wonder he had a complaint about the lunch budget being twice of what was expected.
Elsewhere he saw Dushasan holding the wrong end of a club, and puzzling over why he was unable to smash an egg. Bhishma dismissed that initially, because Dushasan wasn’t what one might consider a gifted child. He was strong. Physically only.
But things took on a more worrying aspect when Bhishma next saw another Kaurav child. He couldn’t remember the kid’s name. This was more of an average, unnamed Kaurav child. And he was putting an arrow in his bow backwards. So the arrow was pointing at himself when he was about to launch it. For a brief moment, Bhishma seriously considered letting Darwinism take control here. But he thought the better of it, and stopped the child before he could launch the arrow at himself.
One could be an exception, but two is a pattern. Thought Bhishma. He needed reassurance. He sought out his favorite.
When Arjun saw him, he ran over and gave his grandpa a hug. They shared a special bond thanks to Arjun’s having taken a keen interest in Bhishma’s weapons, especially his bow and arrow.
Arjun was holding a bow and arrow. And he was holding it well.
Let’s see you hit something.
“Righto” said Arjun. He aimed carefully and hit a mango in a nearby tree. It was a great shot for someone his age. And he showed tremendous promise. Not unlike Bhishma himself.
Something in what Kripacharya was doing was helping.
“When did Kripacharya get you started in archery?” asked Bhishma
“I’m sorry, who?” asked Arjun.
“Kripacharya. Your guru. Your professor” Bhishma replied, but already with a sinking feeling.
“I don’t know who that is. We only have teaching assistants who ask us to do whatever we want whenever we want”
“And what about archery then?” asked Bhishma
“Is that what this is? I was calling it stick-throwing. See, this thing with the pointy end is the stick, and this other thing is a curved stick throwifier”
Bhishma cringed.
“And the reality is, don’t tell the teaching assistants, but I’m not supposed to be stick-throwing. I’ve just been sneaking away and doing it. I’ve been practicing what I’ve observed from you, grandpa.”
Bhishma was immediately filled with tremendous respect for this little prodigy. But that was immediately superseded by an overwhelming urgency to find the children a new tutor.
Yudhishtir had walked over to Bhishma at this time. That boy was the eldest of the lot, Bhishma asked him why he hadn’t said something about how school was going. But Yudhishthir merely replied that it would be disrespectful to criticize your teachers. So he was not going to do it.
“Seriously?” thought Bhishma “spoil all your lives and careers by keeping silent about obvious wrongdoing?” But he didn’t say anything. That was a topic for another day. Another item on his to-do list.
That evening Bhishma published several advertisements for weapons instructors who wanted to teach royal princes. There were many applicants the following days, but every candidate withdrew when they found out the scope of what they had to deal with.
The only person who could help, Bhishma concluded, was Dronacharya.
I have many stories to tell about Dronacharya and in time I will cover them on the show. All I’ll say for now is that Dronacharya was the child of the Saptarishi Bharadwaj who has been mentioned before on the show.
Drona was an incredible coach. Think Sir Alex Ferguson, or Nick Bollettieri, and magnify their impact a hundred times.
Bhishma sent out hundreds of messengers to try to locate Dronacharya, but without much success.
Apparently.
Because, one day Dronacharya simply showed up at the Academy. The Pandava and Kaurava children were playing a rare game together. They didn’t pay attention to the strange bearded man. It’s another failure of Kripacharya’s administration that no one was around to challenge Dronacharya and ask him what business he had there.
Dronacharya observed the lot playing for a long time. About that time, the ball they were playing with fell into a well. 106 princes gathered around the well taking turns to peer over the edge.
No one had any idea how to get the ball out. That’s when Dronacharya decided that this could be his audition for the job.
He stepped forward and asked the princes if they needed help. A pointless question of course, but it never hurts to confirm.
106 princes all launched into a combination of confirmations, begging, pleas, wailing.
Dronacharya held up his hand, for silence. Which was instantly obeyed. Another good sign! I wish Bhishma were watching this on CCTV, thought Dronacharya. He asked the children to go fetch him twigs with a sharp end.
When you have so many helpers, such tasks are easily done.
The princes observed as Dronacharya took one of the sharpest twigs, aimed it carefully and hit the ball exactly in the center. There was a collective gasp from the crowd at that perfect aim.
Like all other balls at the time, this was a cloth ball. Which explains why the twig got attached to the ball.
“That’s great!” said Duryodhan sarcastically. “The ball was 50 feet deep, now we can grab the twig, which is only 49 feet deep. But pardon me, stranger, if I don’t jump for joy”
“You’re right to be patient, young man” said Dronacharya ignoring the sarcasm. He took another twig, aimed it carefully and hit the first twig. Another gasp from the crowd.
Dronacharya continued hitting one twig after another, until he had built an entire chain of twigs all attached to the ball. Which really was easy to pull out at that point.
But it had taken a while, and after about halfway no one was gasping anymore. In fact, most of the crowd was bored and wondering “is he done yet? Can we get on with our game”. The only person who watched keenly was Arjun. His jaw was still hanging and he had tried to learn Dronacharya’s aiming technique. He’d observed some things that he had never tried before. He would give them a shot when practicing his version of stick-throwing. Or archery as Bhishma grandpa insisted on calling it. This thing that Dronacharya was doing was the real stick-throwing.
Well he had one fabulous story to tell Bhishma grandpa next time they met. This stranger was a genius!
Arjun did tell Bhisma the story, and Dronacharya did become tutor to the royal princes.
But we’ll cover that and more in a future episode.
Some notes on the show
Previous Mahabharat Episodes are here:
Episode 59 – River of Dreams
Episode 60 – Down By The River
Episode 68 – Waiting
Episode 69 – Father and Son
Episode 70 – The Art of the Deal
Episode 83 – Mahabharata – The Groom Reveal Party
Episode 84 – Mahabharat – A Princess Scorned
Episode 91 – Mahabharat – Amba
Episode 96 – Mahabharat – Vyas Ex Machina
Episode 105 – Mahabharat – Four Weddings and a Birth
Episode 108 – Mahabharat – Oh, deer!
Episode 115 – Mahabharat – How to raise a family
Check out these other Mahabharat Episodes too, some of which are peripherally linked to the main storyline, including
Episode 27 – The Rise of Shukra
Episode 28 – His Girl Friday
Episode 31 – Death Cheater
Episode 37 – A Fishy Engagement
Episode 120 – Mahabharata – Nala and Damayanti
That’s all for now.
Next Time
In the next episode, we’ll learn life lessons from Punjabi folk tales