Mahabharat Essay Writing Competition Winning Essay (Part2)
Our Winners Under English Category are -
2nd Place Winners -
Krithika Sudarsanam
Mahabharata is a timeless classic that carries Ocean death lessons for any age and is universally applicable. The most prominent one is from Bhagavad Gita from Bhishma parva, yet another from the same classic is Vidura Neethi from Udyogaparva.
Despite, the listeners are from Mahabharata, the preachers are the divine forms with the list of queries and clarifications are timeless wisdom for life irrespective of geographical barriers.
Vidur Niti:
Vidura nevertheless being a cousin of the king Dirudharashtra, himself being the incarnation of Lord Yama Dharma served as an excellent counsel to the king especially during the war. In spite of having similarities with the Bhagavad Gita, vidur Niti contains some lessons for daily life on all walks of life.
Some of the most inspiring lessons I enjoyed from this are mentioned below: Having a flair for management and administration, I have hand picked a few topics on the same concept.
1. Anybody can create any problem any time.
2. Settled score should never be re opened.
The most crucial part especially for a leader is that one should have an excellent sense of control by all means. Further more mutual respect among human beings is essential irrespective of cadre designation or educational qualification.
Victory in an illegitimate way is always a transient one. On the other hand, honestful
sincere attempts definitely postpones but assures the victory.
The most powerful weapon is silence and many issues are resolved only by silence. Knowledge drives fear. Unsaidly, promotion is the result of hard work. Apart, vidhura never fails to speak about the type of bosses, the types of servants and also the routine just activities that would give benefits for generations. Considering the word limit even when there are still uncountable lessons to be mentioned I conclude my proudly establishing that I put in my the best efforts to follow the mentioned ones and the many more unlisted ones which when followed will definitely have a great positive impact on the overall will being of oneself because our mental health is safeguarded the base of our physical health.
2nd Place Winner -
Ashu Verma Chaubey
TITLE ::: The lessons we've still not learnt
Mahabharata — The Epic describing objectives of mankind , the story of fall of an empire, that of enmity and rivalry between brothers in order to fulfill their desire to establish absolute authority and win the race towards self-guided motives —Dharma(righteousness), Artha(wealth and prosperity), Kama(desire) and Moksha(liberation).
A saga that begins and ends with Desire.
A son's pledge to act as a caretaker of the throne throughout his life for the sake of his father's happiness and a father's boon in return, as a reward, both of which perhaps didn't go right.
A long battle to satisfy false egos and vengeance and lack of moral values and discipline that finally led to the ultimate doom.
A defeat not accepted.
A victory, nothing short of defeat.
Though weaved in 100,000 verses are multiple important life lessons, if we dig a bit deeper it's a story about morals not taught and values not followed.
Towards the end, Bhima emerges as the ultimate warrior, killing both the primary antagonists Duryodhana and Dushasana.
But is this true, I doubt.
To me Duryodhana and Dushasana’s end had been planned long before Bhima vowed to kill them, much before Draupadi insulted them, in fact even before the princes attained maturity and the culprit wasn't Bhima but their father, Dhritrashtra himself.
The seeds of jealousy he'd sown in his heart instead of wholeheartedly accepting Pandu as the king, grew into trees, strong and seeking revenge.
He was born just physically blind but people around him blinded his intelligence and sense of judgement. A ruler, physically the strongest but so weak mentally that he succumbed to Artha and Kama very easily.
When Queen Kunti returned to the palace after Pandu’s death along with her sons, instead of welcoming them, he saw them as rivals proving that his emotions for his brother and his family had died long back and their return was an unpleasant and undesirable event for him.
His eyes spitted jealousy and hatred instead of love.
Those expressions made his own children believe that their uncle was responsible for their father's misery.
Moreover, instead of confronting the external forces trying to disrupt peace in his family, Dhritrashtra surrendered before them.
Not realising that he was poisoning his own progeny, he continued to pamper and support them despite knowing that they were heading on the wrong path.
A person becomes what he lives and so they grew up to be delinquent and egoist teenagers, hating their brothers.
Bhishma, who had the potential to make things right was also blinded by the false ego of living by his vow. The only one who had the power as well as rights to take decisions, turned a blind eye towards everything else except his vow.
He always pleaded helplessness being bound to the person officially occupying the throne. He appears more like a slave rather than The Great Grandfather.
Instead of punishing or guiding Duryodhana when he had picked up fights with his cousins in his childhood or when he tried to kill them during his teenage years, Bhishma just kept on complaining to Dhritrashtra, who ignored each and every immoral act of the crown prince.
The Indraprastha episode happened much later. Draupadi’s insult was the final blow. Instead of punishing the wrong doers, everyone shifted responsibilities.
Dhritrashtra sat there dumb founded and Bhishma helpless as ever. Even a woman's lost dignity couldn't force him to shed his false pride of keeping his pledge.
The battlefield sucked blood of more than half of Dhritrashtra's sons, still his ego didn't let him stop the war.
Even Gandhari, instead of punishing her son for severing the dignity of another woman, bestowed him with additional powers. to help him counter Bhima.
So on one hand, they kept on pardoning Duryodhana and failed to inculcate morals and values in him and on the other hand they stripped their relatives of even their basic rights.
And then she cursed Krishna and Dhritrashtra tried to kill Bhima.
A ruler who should have taught his sons the value of brotherhood and to rule with morality and righteousness but who till the last didn't learn any of these virtues himself.
A protector who till his last moments didn't accept that he did wrong by letting people suffer injustice just to keep his head held high that he didn't break his vow till the end of his life.
None of these three protagonists were on the right path themselves, nor did they care to mend their ways nor did they try to inculcate morals and values in their heirs.
On the other hand, Yudhisthira’s lust to win let him bet on his own life-partner, without thinking about what rights over Draupadi made him use her as his property.
He could have said no but he didn't.
He then lied in the battlefield to get rid of Kripacharya.
He let Abhimanyu enter the chakravyuh.
Why not himself ???
He is the other helpless soul who couldn't part with his ego nor learn from his mistakes.
Sons sacrificed, grandsons lost, battlefield turned into pools of blood.
Was it really a win?
No……
In my opinion, it was a complete defeat.
But even that didn't teach the survivors what they should have learnt much earlier…..
And as for us, it's still not too late to learn the unlearned lessons from — The Mahabharata………
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