Draupadi, presumably thinking 'I am far too pretty to be putting up with this', from Wikimedia.
Today I continued my reading of Narayan's Mahabharata.
This time Draupadi played a much more major character, mostly by telling the five brothers that she was too good to be just one of their wives, and so she'd take all five instead. This works generally well, and they work out a pretty fair time-share system, but the brothers are very sternly warned to be the purest of the pure (hello, Sita) when they aren't her designated husband.
Sort of a side note, time seems to pass really strangely here. Arjuna definitely thought about Draupadi when she wasn't with him, and so he was exiled. This seems to have worked out alright for Arjuna, since his exile is mostly noted by how he takes a couple more wives. Granted, neither are the prettiest woman that ever existed, but... Two wives are better than one?
Props to Dhritarashtra for not being able to hate the Pandavas like everyone else except the Pandavas seem to. I really need to go back and reread the earlier section, because between the similar names and the multitude of characters I cannot keep track of who hates who and who allies with anyone else.
The eldest Pandava son is crowned, and immediately shows his with as a leader by gambling literally everything and everyone he loves away. He actually loses himself, and then keeps going by waging Draupadi. Fortunately, what I look for in a leader is the specific quality of not knowing when to stop.
In accordance with the theme of awesome women who absolutely do not deserve what they are put through, Draupadi gets dragged to the hall by her hair, and then they try to disrobe her. Because the gods seem to be the only sane ones, she is protected and layers and layers of fabric come off of her, but never the final one.
No comments:
Post a Comment