Storytelling Week 9: The Shift of Power

Duryodhana, the Prince of Hastinapura, had finally completed building the new palace he had been working so diligently on for the last couple of years. He felt it was one of his greatest contributions to Hastinapura, the great city he loved so much. He also believed that his palace was so great that it needed to be the host of a great event, one of high importance. If the first event was of great importance it would symbolize how great the palace was meant to be and set the tone for future events at the palace. From then on, people would know that only events of great importance were being hosted at the palace. 

Shakuni, Duryodhana's uncle, came to Duryodhana with a brilliant proposal. He felt he had the perfect event to inaugurate the new palace. Shakuni wanted to hold a game of dice between himself and the Pandavas, rivals to Shakuni and Duryodhana. The game would actually end up putting Shakuni, a great dice player, against Yudhisthira, head of the Pandavas and a not so great dice player. This put the odds in great favor of Shakuni. The game would have great stakes as well, Shakuni and Duryodhana planned to take full advantage of Shakuni's advantage and try to take as much as possible from the Pandavas.

Shakuni, Yudhisthira, and Duryodhana agreed to come together in Hastinapura beneath the roof of the great palace. Yudhisthira was forced to accept the challenge because of Dharma. He was not allowed to stand down from such a request. They began to play dice and it was very clear from the beginning that Shakuni was going to dominate the contest. The more they played, the more that Yudhisthira wagered and lost. Yudhisthira still continued to wage everything that he had including himself, his brothers, and Draupadi the wife of the Pandavas. He continued to lose but was to stubborn to acknowledge he was going to lose no matter what. 

Eventually, Shakuni brought the game of dice to an end. Yudhisthira knew that his opponents would not hold him to all of his wagers, as it was just a game of dice that got carried away. However, that was not the case. Shakuni and Duryodhana had great plans for all the people they now had possession of due to the game.

Shakuni's first plan of action was to take all of the Pandavas and make them personal assistants to himself and Duryodhana. The Pandavas would be required to do anything they asked of them. These chores would not all be demeaning or negative, but more meaningless tasks that they would have to perform solely out of spite from their new “owners.” 

They decided that it was time for Shakuni to get married as well and they felt as if Draupadi would make a great wife for him. She was therefore forced to marry him and only to be with him from that point forward. As for Yudhisthira, they did not know what to do with him. They then went on to put him into isolation. The reason they came to this decision was they felt it was the only way to get rid go him and not kill him. Had they killed him they were scared karma would be against them. 

They felt now that they had control of the entire kingdom and no one would be able to challenge them from the outside. Fortunately, that was not true. They did not pay close enough attention to the remaining Pandavas, which allowed them to communicate with Yudhisthira without being monitored or caught on to. Although he was still technically in "isolation", they had been able to establish a line of contact. 

Within two years, the Pandavas overthrew Shakuni and Duryodhana after eighteen months of a long revolutionary war. Pandavas took control of the entire kingdom and forced Shakuni and Duryodhana to watch as they destroyed the great palace that hosted the game of dice. The Pandavas then, instead of risking keeping them alive, killed the two and buried them beneath the palace.

The Pandavas would go on to be the wealthy elite of the city that would be ruled by King Yudhisthira and Queen Draupadi. The kingdom would last for many years and no one would dare to challenge the powers of the Pandavas.

Demolition of the Great Palace 

Source: Wikipedia

Author's Note: My inspiration for this story was obviously the story of the game of dice within part B of our reading this week. I really liked the way the story was written originally, which is why I chose to stick to the script for the majority of the beginning of the story. However, after the game of dice I could not decide what to do. I decided to go with the enslavement of the pandavas being used a symbol status because I felt it was better then banning all of the characters from the kingdom and having them out of existence. I felt it was a good idea to somehow incorporate the idea of revolution, which this allowed me to do. The reason I wanted to create the story of revolution was mainly because a lot of my early stories all followed kind of the same plot where the evil prevailed. All stories where the good guy wins get old. However, I wanted to write this one where the good prevailed so that it would change up the tone of my stories. Another reason for me to do this is that personally, only through the beginning of the novel I have grown to dislike the characters that appear to be on the evil side or the opposition if that is a better description.

Bibliography:

• Narayan, R. K. (1978). The Mahabharata: A Shortened Modern Prose Version of the Indian Epic.