Had wanted to blog on Krishna right from the day I read Irawati Karve's seminal classic - Yuganta. Finally I got some time to pen down my thoughts. Also helping me in some submission on Leadership !!
Going by Gita, the very purpose of Krishna incarnation was to remove adharma from the world. But a closer look at the epic clearly shows that the over riding factor that Krishna always keep in mind was protection of his clan and making sure people whom he favours are not being made to suffer. At every stage one can see him helping the Pandavas and the yadava clan. He wanted to make the alliances of Pandavas strong in their quest for victory. One can say that this was in line with his ambition of bringing in dharma in the world if one links adharma with the Kauravas. But one cannot see a clear link other than the fact that there was intense rivalry between the cousins and unethical methods were used by Kauravas to try and kill their cousins. But deep inside as for Krishna it should have been nothing more than helping his best friend Arjuna and his cousins come back to power. In all probability he wished that this would in turn provide respite to Yadavas too and would be beneficial for his own people.
Even during consultations for Rajasuya yajna, Krishna tells Dharma the importance of defeating Jarasandha clearly knowing well that his army alone could probably not take revenge for the thrashing that they got in Jarasandha’s hands. Krishna time and again establishes his superior knowledge as well as gets almost all the respect and fame of a king. One can gauge that he would feel vicarious pleasure in this since he could not be crowned the Yadava king. Due to the internal strife and opposition to Krishna becoming the king even within the Yadava clan forced him to make Balarama, with whom he had many differences, the king. At a personal level Krishna would have wanted to earn all that he lost in not being the king through his association with Pandavas and other strong clans of North India.
By acts like killing of Jarasandha who had broken the Kshatriya code of conduct by planning to sacrifice kings, Krishna also established peace and righteousness. At the same time one must also underscore the fact that killing of Jarasandha was also personal revenge since he had thrashed yadavas in a prior battle. Through this he also put an end to Jarasandha’s empire building exercise which was against the codes established in those days. Even here he would have quite well known that it would be impossible in defeating the much touted army of Magadha in a full battle. He schemes to have Jarasandha killed by Bhima through a one on one battle.
He also kills his cousin Shishupala during the Rajasuya yajna. This served two purposes - one that the Mahabharata is very vocal about is the fact that Shishupala tried to obstruct the yajna and Krishna had to take this extreme step. At another level this also meant that Balaram can rule without much objection since apart from Shishupala and Krishna there were not very many capable leaders in Yadava clan. One can again see how Krishna accomplishes more than one objective through well crafted planning.
Krishna of Mahabharata was not a god. He was born into Yadava clan and through his intelligence, abilities and strategic planning rose to become a key figure in the India of those days wielding unmatched power over not just his own people but also of other states. The fact that the alliances that he built and the friendships that he cultivated with strong kings helped him in this cannot be overlooked.
He also had his own personal ambitions of self aggrandisement. He wanted to be renowned as Vasudeva – a position approaching divinity in the society in those days. This was marked for the rarest of rare people – once in a yuga (as per Irawati Karve’s own research). It would just be coincidence that we call Krishna vasudeva today (a patronymic for son of Vasudeva) but in all probability Krishna was never born with the greatness of Vasudeva – the highest accolade of greatness of the Indian society of that age. The research indicates that in one epoch as much as nine vasudevas are born or titled. In that sense both Ram and Krishna were two exceptionally brilliant individuals who could both get the title of Vasudeva and who post their death went on to get the God-like image under Hindu philosophy.
Towards getting this title he killed Pundra – a king who had crowned himself Vasudeva in that particular yuga. There were no real threats to Krishna in claiming the title of Vasudeva after this.
Later on Krishna’s ambitions centred on helping his dear friend Arjuna and his rather stupid set of 4 brothers. In one of the rare occasions that Krishna was unavailable for direction the eldest of the five lost his kingdom, wife and all that was dear to him by playing dice and being fooled by a rather cunning Shakuni. All his actions from then on were to get back Hastinapura for Pandavas since he felt them to be more just than Kauravas.
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
My Town
Written and submitted as part of the Course ERI - Explorations in Roles and Identity)
Shadows 2 – OFC 0
Some of the earliest memory of my town for me is the annual football competition that used to happen in NSS KPT High School ground. We as boys wearing white shirts and blue knickers would go and watch every match. We had our own heroes. I remember that my favorite was a black muscular forward from shadows named Kabeer. He had a knack of dribbling any number of defenders and scoring at the most crucial moments of match. It was fashionable to suck on to ice stick candies of orange and cream hues. The money for the same was made by trading sticker labels. My group of friends would buy sticker label from local town shops for 25 paisa each and sell them at school for 40 paisa. (As an MBA I am shocked at the kind of margins we used to make then!!) So the most poignant moments of early town days were those wherein I would watch Kabeer score a brace against OFC in the tournament finals with me sucking on to an orange ice candy.
The barber shop was also a key part of town. Our gang used to go for haircuts together. In part it was because of the rumor that the barber was gay. Of course as kids we would not really place him to be gay but stories floated around that he touched the penis of a kid when he went to get his hair cut all alone. Whatever that meant we thought we would rather avoid such embarrassing incidents and hence decided to go in a gang to cut hair!! And it was an amazing Sunday morning picnic more often than not! Even though it meant missing out on a bit of Mahabharat or Ramayan.
The town had a whore. Her name was Kochu, atleast that was the rumour. At around the time I was in eighth I heard how my friend peed in his pants when she called out to him once when he was going alone through Club Road. (A rather notorious road where the college guys and girls were known to exchange letters and kisses in the dark of night. The street lamps were broken – by time or by plans of amorous teenagers). The whore was beautiful in an unconventional way. She wore her sari in a way so as to show her navel and we boys would frequently joke about the same. She should have been pretty old and we used to have discussion regarding the pricing of her services. She had a station in the behind of bus stand from where she plied her trade. Since we did not know of any other whore in the town I would presume she ran a monopoly market!
Ottapalam had amazing number of festivals for a town of its size! My memories of some of them in Ottapalam has the face of "Poothan and Thira", wandering out of Hindu mythology, their countenance masked by rather grotesque make-ups. While the former represented the demons, the later stood for gods. They came with the sound of festivals the smell of spring. The festival was associated with a temple. It was also associated with men drinking and dancing. Drunken men scared the wits out of us kids. The festival also had other item numbers – girls dancing with pots on their heads, people dressed up as wild animals, chiefly tiger and bear. The girls and their dance was my favorite number. They danced to the tune of hit Tamil movie songs. The smell of their makeup and the smell of liquor emanating from the men drumming hectic tunes was a heady mix. Alcohol to this day makes me nostalgic about that festival.
The place had a long river. The very same river over which no bridge has ever been constructed in my town. Our gang of boys and sometimes girls used to sit in her bank and enjoy many an evenings. The setting sun in the evenings was worth watching. We also used to catch glimpses of bathing woman. It was fun in a harmless way those days. We didn’t know why it was so though! Which one did I love more – the bathing woman or setting sun – is a debate I’ve long since thought unworthy of being persisted with.
There was also a bar – Aramana. It was here that men used to go to get their daily drinks in the evenings. Aramana road was considered taboo after dark for women and children. Since it was taboo we used to go there after sun set. We would run when we heard a drunken man singing an old hit Malayalam song. Nevertheless we would go back to catch glimpses of guys walking intoxicated, calling names, abusing mothers, singing double meaning lyrics and sometime fall into the ditch by the roadside.
It was even more appealing to us kids since it had a theatre close to it named Imperial. Imperial theatre used to show “Adult Only” movies at 12 o clock shows. Since we did not have the guts to go in and watch the same, we used to take peeks at the posters showing semi naked girls & ghosts. The whole region thus became a taboo – one we would never want our relatives or parents to see us in. The funny thing though was that the Railway Station was also there about. Hence one would always had to watch the movie poster as well as the bar and act as if we had no clue about either of them in front of our parents. Getting down from trains became a tense affair lest we were caught peeking at either of the monuments – the bar or the theatre. The fear being that just looking at these would be construed as our having tasted the forbidden fruits therein
Shadows 2 – OFC 0
Some of the earliest memory of my town for me is the annual football competition that used to happen in NSS KPT High School ground. We as boys wearing white shirts and blue knickers would go and watch every match. We had our own heroes. I remember that my favorite was a black muscular forward from shadows named Kabeer. He had a knack of dribbling any number of defenders and scoring at the most crucial moments of match. It was fashionable to suck on to ice stick candies of orange and cream hues. The money for the same was made by trading sticker labels. My group of friends would buy sticker label from local town shops for 25 paisa each and sell them at school for 40 paisa. (As an MBA I am shocked at the kind of margins we used to make then!!) So the most poignant moments of early town days were those wherein I would watch Kabeer score a brace against OFC in the tournament finals with me sucking on to an orange ice candy.
The barber shop was also a key part of town. Our gang used to go for haircuts together. In part it was because of the rumor that the barber was gay. Of course as kids we would not really place him to be gay but stories floated around that he touched the penis of a kid when he went to get his hair cut all alone. Whatever that meant we thought we would rather avoid such embarrassing incidents and hence decided to go in a gang to cut hair!! And it was an amazing Sunday morning picnic more often than not! Even though it meant missing out on a bit of Mahabharat or Ramayan.
The town had a whore. Her name was Kochu, atleast that was the rumour. At around the time I was in eighth I heard how my friend peed in his pants when she called out to him once when he was going alone through Club Road. (A rather notorious road where the college guys and girls were known to exchange letters and kisses in the dark of night. The street lamps were broken – by time or by plans of amorous teenagers). The whore was beautiful in an unconventional way. She wore her sari in a way so as to show her navel and we boys would frequently joke about the same. She should have been pretty old and we used to have discussion regarding the pricing of her services. She had a station in the behind of bus stand from where she plied her trade. Since we did not know of any other whore in the town I would presume she ran a monopoly market!
Ottapalam had amazing number of festivals for a town of its size! My memories of some of them in Ottapalam has the face of "Poothan and Thira", wandering out of Hindu mythology, their countenance masked by rather grotesque make-ups. While the former represented the demons, the later stood for gods. They came with the sound of festivals the smell of spring. The festival was associated with a temple. It was also associated with men drinking and dancing. Drunken men scared the wits out of us kids. The festival also had other item numbers – girls dancing with pots on their heads, people dressed up as wild animals, chiefly tiger and bear. The girls and their dance was my favorite number. They danced to the tune of hit Tamil movie songs. The smell of their makeup and the smell of liquor emanating from the men drumming hectic tunes was a heady mix. Alcohol to this day makes me nostalgic about that festival.
The place had a long river. The very same river over which no bridge has ever been constructed in my town. Our gang of boys and sometimes girls used to sit in her bank and enjoy many an evenings. The setting sun in the evenings was worth watching. We also used to catch glimpses of bathing woman. It was fun in a harmless way those days. We didn’t know why it was so though! Which one did I love more – the bathing woman or setting sun – is a debate I’ve long since thought unworthy of being persisted with.
There was also a bar – Aramana. It was here that men used to go to get their daily drinks in the evenings. Aramana road was considered taboo after dark for women and children. Since it was taboo we used to go there after sun set. We would run when we heard a drunken man singing an old hit Malayalam song. Nevertheless we would go back to catch glimpses of guys walking intoxicated, calling names, abusing mothers, singing double meaning lyrics and sometime fall into the ditch by the roadside.
It was even more appealing to us kids since it had a theatre close to it named Imperial. Imperial theatre used to show “Adult Only” movies at 12 o clock shows. Since we did not have the guts to go in and watch the same, we used to take peeks at the posters showing semi naked girls & ghosts. The whole region thus became a taboo – one we would never want our relatives or parents to see us in. The funny thing though was that the Railway Station was also there about. Hence one would always had to watch the movie poster as well as the bar and act as if we had no clue about either of them in front of our parents. Getting down from trains became a tense affair lest we were caught peeking at either of the monuments – the bar or the theatre. The fear being that just looking at these would be construed as our having tasted the forbidden fruits therein
Monday, February 13, 2006
Whattay Match !!
I've not been writing a lot recently and I have some good excuses !! :D..But today I just could not resist writing about the way India went about meticulously chasing a fighting total and winning in style. I would not go on to say this is a rejuveneted India blah blah, but it was thrilling watching Dhoni and Yuvi script the victory. But for me the innings was again by Little Master. Even when some shortsighted idiots like a certain former wicket keeper says his days are numbered he plays one of the most skillfull innings ever from him. In a pitch where the ball was both swinging and seaming and where the batsmen had no clue if Asif/GUl was bringing a ball in or out, surviving and then scoring those 95 runs speaks volumes of the genius in him.
Things are chill here at campus. Nothing really is happening on the acads front. Today it was discussing Mahabharata especially the charecters Karna and Krishna to see what we as future leaders (supposedly!!:)) can learn from their lives.This whole week is sort of free of academic engagements for me.
Firms have started coming for placements - for lateral positions and some of the salaries are never heard of before. Sometimes I just cant resists a feeling that this whole "economy booming" and salaries skyrocketing through the roof (even by IIM A standards) is unsustainable. Maybe because our generation has gone through the boom-bust cycle so vividly. I hope we ride this wave for a long time to come as a nation.I've been gorging on the pizzas and pastries that the companies coming for presentations give to woo students to come and listen. This has clearly increased my waistline by 2 inches leading to me wearing only sportswear with elastic waistbands these days ! Trying to play football daily to reduce the little paunch !
Happy valentines day, in case it's still in fashion !! :)
Things are chill here at campus. Nothing really is happening on the acads front. Today it was discussing Mahabharata especially the charecters Karna and Krishna to see what we as future leaders (supposedly!!:)) can learn from their lives.This whole week is sort of free of academic engagements for me.
Firms have started coming for placements - for lateral positions and some of the salaries are never heard of before. Sometimes I just cant resists a feeling that this whole "economy booming" and salaries skyrocketing through the roof (even by IIM A standards) is unsustainable. Maybe because our generation has gone through the boom-bust cycle so vividly. I hope we ride this wave for a long time to come as a nation.I've been gorging on the pizzas and pastries that the companies coming for presentations give to woo students to come and listen. This has clearly increased my waistline by 2 inches leading to me wearing only sportswear with elastic waistbands these days ! Trying to play football daily to reduce the little paunch !
Happy valentines day, in case it's still in fashion !! :)
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