Mahabharata – Don’t have a cow – {Ep.195} – Stories From India – Podcast

A Mahabharata story about Dronacharya and Drupad, about how refusing to acknowledge a decades-long friendship can lead to a decades-long grudge, and humiliation

Introduction

Welcome to “Stories From India”. This is a podcast that will take you on a journey through the rich mythology, folklore and history of the Indian subcontinent. I am Narada Muni, the celestial storyteller and the original “time lord”. With my ability to travel through space and time, I can bring you exciting and fascinating stories from the past, the present, and the future. From the epic tales of the Mahabharata and Ramayana to the folktales of the Panchatantra to stories of Akbar-Birbal and Tenali Raman, I have a story for every occasion.

The purpose of the stories is neither to pass judgment nor to indoctrinate. My goal is only to share these stories with people who may not have heard them before and to make them more entertaining for those who have.

Today’s Story

In this episode, we’re doing a story from the Mahabharata. This story is from the main storyline and not one of the peripheral ones we have done before. All of the stories are available in links on the show notes. But I’ll give a short summary of the story so far. The Mahabharata is of the two greatest epics from India,the other being the Ramayana which we’ve also covered on the show. The Mahabharata started with Bhishma, the crown prince of Hastinapur. Bhishma made a promise that he would never marry, nor have any children. He did this just because his father, the King, had decided to marry the woman of his choice. Said woman of his choice decided she would choose the next King. So Bhishma promised that Satyavati’s unborn children would sit on the throne, and that he would always protect and serve them.

That was the first of many succession problems that Hastinapur experienced. First there weren’t enough candidates to sit on the throne – then there were too many!

Dhritarashtra, became the King despite being blind, because he was in the “not-enough Kings available” phase of Hastinapur’s history. But he worked to rectify the problem, because him and his wife Gandhari had a 102 children. Only problem was, maybe it wasn’t their oldest son, Duryodhan, who would sit on the throne. Popular opinion seemed to favor the former King Pandu’s oldest child – Yudhishthir. Yudhishthir was older than Duryodhan, but Duryodhan was the eldest son of the current emperor. And because people left this ambiguity unresolved, a lot of lives were lost. I’ve said this before and I’ll say this again – there are no heroes and villains in the Mahabharata. There are just people – who sometimes do nice things and sometimes do evil things.

The Pandavas and the Kauravas grew up under the tutelage of first Kripacharya and later Dronacharya. And each child found something to be passionate about. Arjun the Pandava was the expert archer. Bhima, also a Pandava, and Duryodhan were each the strongest amongst their siblings. We’ll continue the story at the point where the princes have all completed their education, but not yet been handed their diplomas. We’ll see what they need to do to earn that final piece of paper, or tree bark in this case since paper hadn’t been invented yet.

Dronacharya gets his revenge

The Pandava and Kaurav princes were assembled in the largest lecture hall for their commencement..This was their graduation ceremony. This was the day they had been looking forward to for a long while now! And their recent performance in the royal stadium had helped boost public opinion in their favor. Except for the interruption by Karna near the end. Still, no matter. Karna’s interruption did help boost the ratings. And people were hiring DVRs to help relive those moments. These aren’t the Digital Video Recorders you might be familiar with. Remember this thing happened thousands of years ago. These DVRs were Doosra-din Verbal Reporters – people who made it their profession to observe major sporting events and to relate those to paying customers. But though the DVR ratings had spiked, Arjun felt that the general populace had the attention span of a goldfish, and they’d forget Karna quickly enough. What mattered was that these princes were ready to get in on the whole running-a-kingdom thing. And he wanted to get a move on. When was his professor showing up to this commencement?

But instead of Dronacharya, a stranger stepped in. He said that his name was Bertie and it was a jolly morning and all that sort of rot, and he was there to talk to them don’t you know. 

Duryodhan was disdainful. In typical Malfoy-like fashion he asked Bertie why he was on stage instead of professor. What did Bertie hope to teach them besides how to dress oddly and to walk about like a giant ape?

Bertie had got Duryodhan there! Apes don’t dress oddly, they don’t dress at all. But he didn’t want to put his student down in front of the class, it wouldn’t be nice of him. So he simply said “I say, old chap, it’s not your fault you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth and a stick up your… well, you know. Why don’t we just get on with the lesson here, what?”

The princes weren’t expecting a lesson, but this was rather unusual for Dronacharya so they decided to wait at least a minute or two before booing Bertie out of the lecture hall. And it was a good thing they did.

Because it was a sad story of friendship and of betrayal. It began with Dronacharya when he was a little boy. That shocked the entire lecture hall – no one had imagined until that point that Drona could have ever been young. Imagine how the students of Hogwarts might feel if they suddenly saw a picture of Dumbledore when he was a toddler. A shocking realization that their world was larger than it seemed. But that was not the point of the lecture.

Drona when he was a little boy was a student at his father Bharadwaja’s ashram. Bharadwaja was a Saptarishi, one of the seven hall-of-fame rishis. And because he was a professor, naturally his son got a free education! 

Along with a world-class education, Drona got something else out of studying under Bharadwaja. He got to be friends with his classmate. That classmate was Drupada. The two of them were thick as thieves. Often the two would be found playing marbles or gilli danda  together or swimming in the stream, or sometimes skipping classes to go watch the matinee puppet show in the town center. A practice that is not uncommon to this day.

This Jai and Veeru style friendship seemed like it was going to last for eternity. Thankfully though they didn’t sing awkward songs about it “yeh dosti hum nahi chodhenge”. Because that is precisely what they did. That dosti, or friendship of theirs, came to an end. Not suddenly. But because they just drifted apart.

After graduation day, they went their separate ways. They had promised to write letters to each other every week and to meet every long weekend. But that changed to writing letters once a month, and never actually meeting. Dronacharya was busy learning new skills that would make him a solid educator in the future. And Drupada claimed the administration of the Kingdom was a burden. That was really the first time Dronacharya seriously realized that his friend Drupada was actually a King. The King of Panchala.

Dronacharya even half-chuckled to himself when he remembered an incident from a long time ago. They were playing marbles and Drupada had run out, so Drupada had wanted to borrow a few from Dronacharya. And Drona grudgingly shared half of his marbles only after Drupada promised to share half of everything he owned with Drona. Imagine that, I could be half-King of Panchala, Drona said to himself and moved on.

Dushasana interrupted Bertie’s story at this point. “Aha, so the point emerges. You want us to not make rash promises. Got it! Lesson learnt, now can you hand us our diplomas?”

But that wasn’t the point of the story. They were about halfway through the show’s runtime, so could Dushasana just be patient here?

Dronacharya married, and had a child. Ashwatthama.

Yes, we know. the crowd said. He’s right here, amongst us. Waiting for his diploma too.

Bertie continued, ignoring the interruption. Dronacharya was not wealthy. He wasn’t below the poverty line, but he didn’t really have the luxurious comforts that Drupada’s children must be experiencing.

Then one day, when Ashwatthama was a little boy and playing with his friends, something happened. This was at Dronacharya’s ashram, and Ashwatthama rubbed shoulders with royalty, just as Drona had done.

What the boy experienced was peer pressure. All of his friends talked about how milk was essential to being healthy. How their nutritionists and diet coaches had prescribed daily glasses of milk. This made Ashwatthama curious – what was milk? He only ate his breakfast cornflakes raw. And he ate his Bournvita rather than drinking it like they did.

Ashwatthama’s friends thought this was too good an opportunity not to prank him. So they took some atta or flour, mixed it with water and told him this was milk.

Ashwatthama might never have known better. He might have accepted that milk was basically flour-water. But Drona witnessed all this. This incident triggered Drona to a pretty big extent. He was going to get his child milk. And if there was a time to cash in on a favor, this was it. He wouldn’t be asking Drupada for half his Kingdom. Drona recognized that the promise was a rash one and he wouldn’t be holding Drupada’s feet to the fire. But he would ask for a young and healthy cow. Yeah, that should do it.

He hunted down and found the last letters he had received from Drupada. It was just a card that said season’s greetings, and it was from years ago. Drona didn’t think he needed it to remind the King himself, but he might need it to get past Drupada’s bureaucracy.

What happened was quite the reverse. The bureaucracy welcomed Dronacharya in with open arms. Some of them even got selfies taken with this legend of a guru. Drupada though was a bit skeptical. 

“Oh, ah um, sorry but have we met before?” he asked

Dronacharya was shocked. But then he slowly realized that the intervening years had been a rather large gap. So he explained who he was.

“Ah yes, my dear friend, from the rishi Bharatvarsha’s ashram”

“Bharadwaja,” Drona corrected, still patiently.

“Yes, that one” Drupada said, “so what brings you here today, my dear friend….Grona?”

“Drona” the professor corrected, getting a little miffed now. “I’ve come to ask for something”

Drupada grumbled that times were hard, the economy was battling a recession. The bottom was falling out of the stock market. 

He would have gone on, so Drona quickly explained his story and explained what he needed.

“Don’t have a cow, man,” Drupada said. But what we have is some tokens for mother dairy’s milk vending machine. We have installed a few new ones.

But this was not acceptable to Drona. It wasn’t that his friend was refusing to give him a cow. He would gladly have accepted those mother dairy tokens whatever they were if only Drupada had just acknowledged their friendship. His friend, or ex-friend seemed almost embarrassed by their association.

Drona couldn’t stand this insult, and he promptly escalated the situation. “Drupada, you promised you’d give me half your kingdom in exchange for some marbles. I’m here now to cash in on your promise”

Drupada suddenly got to his feet “Hah, I knew it! You are a con man! You never knew me at school. You’re just here for a handout. Guards – throw him out!”

Bertie stopped speaking at this point. The Princes, Duryodhan included, had been listening in rapt attention. Well, what happened next? Someone prompted

That, my dear boys, depends on you.

The Princes who were already surprised that someone had dare insult their guru, were even more shocked to learn that he had done nothing about it after that. Drupada was still ruler of Panchala, and their guru certainly didn’t have a cow

“Oh but that’s where you’re wrong,” a new voice spoke up from the back. It was Dronacharya. As he walked into the lecture hall, he added. “I have done something about it. I’ve taught you”

That then was the ultimate Gurudakshina, or tuition fees, that Drona was demanding from his students. He demanded half of Drupada’s Kingdom, and Drupada himself captive.

“We’re on it!” thundered Duryodhan, and him and his brothers stormed out of the lecture hall. The Pandavas were about to go too, but Drona stopped them. Not you 5. Stay back, I’ve got a much more important job for you. That job, as it turned out, was to clean up the mess in the lecture hall. All those unfinished bags of popcorn, the streamers that were discarded when the Kauravs found out that they weren’t graduating today after all. Even some chewing gum. Yuck.

But before you go criticizing Drona too much for an unfair division of labor, wait and hear what happened.

The Kauravs were back in a couple of days and badly bruised. Drona asked what happened. And Duryodhan admitted that Drupada launched a sneak attack. He ambushed them before they could ambush him. It wasn’t fair. What was the world coming to if a person couldn’t even ambush the enemy without having to watch their back at every turn? But no matter, Duryodhan was going to take a larger army and try again.

“No,” commanded Drona. “Arjun, you can go try your luck. And take your brothers along for company”

Arjun and the other 4 pandavas, started right away. It was just the 5 of them. And this time there were no surprises. Actually the only surprise was that Drupada was facing only the 5 Pandavas on the battlefield. Where was the retaliatory army that Drupad had expected? Were these 5 just the messengers? But they were wearing weapons, so they must be warriors. If it was just those 5, Drupad thought he’d be back home in time for tea. But the King quickly found out how wrong he was.

On the Pandava side, the brothers stood tense looking at an army of thousands in front of them. 

Yudhishthir turned to Bheem and said – “It’s not looking that good. There are a lot of soldiers. I’ll take the 2 on the left, can you take the 9,998 on the right?”

Bheem was going to protest about why he was being denied a wholesome five figure number? That’s what Yudhishtir did last time. It made Bheem’s record look just short no matter how many soldiers he battled at a time.

“Relax bros,” Arjun said. “This one’s on me”. He lazily pulled an arrow and fired it into the sky.

Drupad looked at Arjun and laughed derisively. Lol, he missed. How can anyone miss something as wide a target as an army of 10000? He was supposed to fire straight ahead! And he couldn’t even fire straight. Lol

But the joke was on Drupad. Arjun had not launched an ordinary arrow. It was a very special one that Arjun had in his quiver. It invoked lightning and in a flash, 10,000 bolts shot out of the sky, and 10000 soldiers collapsed on the ground. It helps to have a father who is the God of Thunder and Lightning. Thanks Dad, Arjun said to Indra. 

No problem, son. Indra shouted down from Swarg. Do come visit sometime.

Arjun said he would but he had a battle to deal with.
He really didn’t. The battle was over already. Bheem, with his bare hands, was twisting Drupad’s chariot, crumpling it and compacting it into such a small cube so much that an entrepreneur passing by later built an entire industry around recycling the metal. Despite using heavy industrial machinery that entrepreneur never managed the compaction ratio that Bheem had with his bare hands.

Drupada wasn’t in the chariot when it was compacted. Seeing his army decimated and his chariot crushed to the size of a matchbox had left him with no choice. He meekly agreed to go quietly. 

Drona was pleased with the Pandavas’ result, naturally. Duryodhan and his brothers complained about how it was all just luck. Still they didn’t think it mattered. What was the point of impressing your professor when you’re practically done with school?

They did not realize that they weren’t done with Drona. He would play a role later in the Mahabharata. But that’s for later.

Drona and Drupada signed an agreement – Ashwatthama became king of half of what was Panchala. Drupada was quiet and didn’t say anything, even when Drona said they could go back to being friends. Drona guessed he needed time to process these events. Well, he didn’t want to intrude, Drupada could carry on back home now. He had half a Kingdom to administer now, didn’t he? Ashwatthama would go with him, the two half-Kings. Build some camaraderie on the way, and Ashwatthama could get some deep background from Drupada about the half of the Kingdom that he was taking over.

Drupada never forgot what had happened. He was not done. He’d be having his revenge on Drona. But it was also clear he didn’t have the right weapons and the right commanders yet. He wasn’t upset with the Pandavas, they were just following their Guru’s direction. He needed someone like Arjun on his side. He’d never seen the kind of power that kid had wielded. He’d have to do something about it.

Drupada did. He did a yagna, or special prayer, to be blessed with a child who could destroy Drona. He was blessed not just with one child but two. A boy and a girl. The boy would destroy Drona, Drupada would make sure of it. And his typically patriarchal mindset decided that the girl could marry Arjun. That girl, Draupadi, would go on to become a central character in this epic.

That’s all for now

Some notes on the show

Previous Mahabharata episodes are linked on the site and in the show notes, check them out here

That’s all for now. 

Next Time

In the next episode, we’re going to cover the story of Sakshigopal. The story features a young man and a woman in love. The man does everything right and tries really hard to get permission from the woman’s family. But he gives in to one tiny temptation. It may remind you of Orpheus’s story from Greek mythology.

Feedback

Thank you all for the comments on Social Media and on Spotify’s Q&A! I can’t directly reply to the questions there, but I’ll address them here on this show.

Thank you Aarush and Rez and Dave for the feedback. Raghu and Vamshi – your requests are noted. I’ve added them to my queue.

And Bindu, and Hot wheels Vedant man – I agree with your assessment of the tragic ending of the last episode – Poor Andhi.

If you have any other comments or suggestions or if there are particular stories you’d like to hear, please do let me know by leaving a comment or a review on the site sfipodcast.com, or tweet @sfipodcast, or reply to the questions on Spotify Q&A. You can also find me on Instagram and Facebook.

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A big thank you to each of you for your continued support and your feedback.

The music is from Purple Planet.

Thanks for listening and I’ll see you next time!