Week 7: Reading Diary A

Drona Trains the Princes, from the reading guide for this week

     I chose to read Wilson's Mahabharata this week, since the idea of the characters being stripped down to their bare human tendencies instead of their godly ones was really interesting to me.

It ended up reading quite a bit easier than Narayan's did. There was a lot less time spent, thus far, on explaining who was related to who and who went behind who's back, and while those are things that did eventually add to the story, I enjoyed this one far more. I think it's the difference between reading something like the Bible, which is fairly lineage focused, and reading something for plot and character development. I was much more in tune with the five princes this time around. Instead of feeling like the princes weren't entirely in the right, it made much more sense that the public rallied around them because they accepted their position and made the best of it.

The story overall was really focused on the characters and their motivations, which, as a former theatre person, is exactly what I like to think about. When I rewrite stories, more often than not it's about the characters and what's happening inside their minds as opposed to what's happening around them. This was much more moment focused, little happenings that turned the tide of things one way or another. 

One thing I noticed is the Draupadi-five husbands thing was really downplayed. I'm not sure it existed at all. Instead, Draupadi took her place beside Yudhisthir and that was that. Draupadi, in this, is the embodiment of fire. When someone comes to take her during the gambling game, she yells at them with the utmost dignity, and gets them to leave without doing anything. I love it.