Bad things happen to bad people

I’m an atheist who loves mythology. Mahabharata is my favourite literary work. Unlike the Ramayana, Mahabharata is an epic about flawed…

I’m an atheist who loves mythology. Mahabharata is my favourite literary work. Unlike the Ramayana, Mahabharata is an epic about flawed people who make no effort to cover the sinister nature of their motive. Everyone from the righteous Dharma to the god-incarnate Krishna have a bucket load of flaws. It’s a human tale of gods who fight for a human sustenance.

When it comes to Indian mythology, there are few people who understand it and know it as well as Devdutt Patnaik does.

On an aside, if you’ve never read any of his books, I suggest you start with Jaya. It’s my favourite book of DP and is a fantastic retelling of, no surprises there, the Mahabharata.

I’m currently reading one his most talked about books, My Gita. It’s a book where Dedvdutt tries to decode the Bhagavad Gita for the common man in his inimitable style. I must confess that I’m not done with the book and am still reading it.

A particular passage I read today, made me uncomfortable and gave rise to some questions that I had no answers to. Bear with me as I attempt to explain what that is.

In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna begins by telling Arjuna that he should cast aside his image of the “I” which is just the body and uphold dharma and fight his cousins and his family if that’s what it takes.

Karna is easily my favourite character in the Mahabharata. He’s a troubled soul who gives his all to the one person who trusts him and shows him a sliver of trust and friendship. His entire life, he has seen nothing but rejection. Discarded by his mother at birth, refused to be taught by a respectable teacher in his youth, denied the right to dual with a prince he was more skilled than, not shown respect in public by the elders of the society in spite of being made a king, if anyone had a tough life, it was Karna.

Irrespective of Duryodhana’s relationship with everyone else including his own father and brothers, I always felt like he was a hero when he was around Karna. Duryodhana is the only one who doesn’t attempt to exploit Karna.

Karna’s death in the battle of Kurukshetra is one of the biggest tragedies of the epic. Abhimanyu, a mere child, is made to break the chakravyuha and is cut away from the rest of his family and killed in battle. Karna’s death in the battle is just as heartbreaking. His own master’s lessons fail him, as does his charioteer and he is killed in a manner that is not befitting of a warrior of his valour.

I was reading this portion of My Gita which talks about the reasons behind Karna’s sad demise and how if one looks at it as a lone incident is a tragedy but when you understand the backstory and his past, he is a villain who deserves the fate he was met with.

To sum up, bad things happen to bad people.

It doesn’t matter that Karna was the embodiment of loyalty, trust, friendship, charity, and valour in this life.

According to one famous guru, this is the reason for Karna’s plight.

Wherever he went, people referred to him as a suta or “low-born” because of his ambitions. Throughout his life he complained about this. All the time, he nourished bitterness within himself about his so-called low birth.

This is how we disillusion ourselves — “so-called low birth”. Karna was constantly referred to as low born and insulted by everyone. Even the ones who were on Kauravas side in the battle. Bhishma refused to fight if Karna was a part of the battle. King Shalya who served as Karna’s charioteer constantly put him down during the battle and praised Arjuna’s accomplishments.

All the Karna fans think it is unfair that he should have been put through so much. I think it’s perfectly fair. Society may not be fair, but the existence is perfectly fair — unless you do the right things, the right things will not happen to you.

I have read that paragraph innumerable times and I can’t for the life of me understand why it’s ok for a society to not be fair. And at some point, I just gave up.

Now, go back and read all the quoted texts in this post and replace the name “Karna” with the name of every underprivileged, low-caste person you’ve ever met in your life.