— or how I found fire, softness, and a little clarity in chaos
I didn’t grow up reciting shlokas or watching Sunday Mahabharat episodes with rapt attention. I met the epic much later, in a college course called Great Books where we read it alongside The Odyssey. It was an abridged version, sure, but it opened a door. Suddenly, this wasn’t just some mythological relic. This was an entire human-condition simulator, thousands of years old and still breathing.
Somewhere along the way, I wrote a game theory paper with four friends on optimal Kurukshetra war payoffs. (No, it didn’t solve anything. Yes, it was iconic.) Then I tried to read the full text. Got overwhelmed. Put it down. Picked it back up again years later when I saw a Kathakali performance of Draupadi’s 13th year of exile, where her assault is attempted in the dark woods, and she, even then, burns. It shook something in me.
Later, someone gifted me a pocket Gita to read it for “detachment.” So here I am. Years of reading, re-reading, questioning, trying to “be better” and the Mahabharat keeps walking beside me. Not with answers. But with mirrors.
This isn’t a post of gyaan. Or even one of spiritual clarity. It’s me walking you through the greys. The stuff they don’t print on inspirational posters. The stuff that makes the Mahabharat feel like a reflection of our very modern, very muddled lives.
1. Karna & the Ache of Being Unseen
Karna never wanted pity. He wanted dignity. And maybe more than that, he wanted to be chosen. The world admired his skill but rejected his place. And that… hurts.
He was a brother to the Kauravas, skilled and yet looked down on. His loyalty to Duryodhana wasn’t pure nobility. It was human. He stayed not out of blindness, but out of recognition. Someone saw him. Not the adopted child, not the son of a charioteer. Just him. And once someone sees you like that, it’s hard to walk away. Even when they’re wrong.
Haven’t we all had that one friendship, one relationship, one workplace that saw something in us before we saw it in ourselves? And then we stayed. Even when staying stopped making sense. Karna didn’t crave war. He craved worth. And sometimes those two get tangled.
2. Bhishma & the Cost of Silence
We often frame Bhishma as selfless. The vow of celibacy, the sacrifice for his father, the protector of the throne. But what did he protect really?
Bhishma’s silence in the court when Draupadi is humiliated, when dharma is gasping for air, is one of the epic’s loudest heartbreaks. He knows what is right. But he doesn’t act.
It reminds me of those moments when we mean well but don’t speak up. When we see a workplace being unjust, a stranger being ridiculed, a friend being hurt and we stay quiet. Not out of malice, but out of fatigue. Fear. Politeness. But the epic whispers gently: meaning well is not always enough. Intent, without intervention, can still be complicit.
3. Yudhisthir & the Myth of Morality
Yudhisthir, the dharmaraj. The guy known for virtue, but who also loses everything in a gamble. Was he evil? No. He was… pressured. Flawed. Human.
He made a terrible decision and kept spiraling, trying to stay “moral” in the face of a rigged game. And still, the Mahabharat doesn’t cancel him. It lets him fall. Learn. Evolve.
What it shows, again and again, is this: being moral doesn’t mean being perfect. It means owning your mistakes. Facing the fire. And choosing again. Dharma isn’t a label. It’s a compass. And sometimes, the needle shakes.
The fact that he reaches the peak at the end despite his mistake is proof that it’s okay to fail. What matters is how the heart holds up and course-corrects.
4. Draupadi: Fire, Rage, and Quiet Knowing
Draupadi is not a passive victim. She’s not a caricature of beauty or vengeance. She’s a full, explosive, deeply knowing woman. She refuses shame. She doesn’t forget, but she doesn’t let pain define her either.
In the forest, in the courtroom, in exile. She burns. Not wildly. With control. I don’t know if she longed for Karna the way some poets imagine. But I do believe she longed to be seen as more: not just a wife, not just a war-catalyst, but as herself.
What makes her rare isn’t her rage. It’s that she keeps going. She demands. She feels. She remains soft where it matters and sharp where it’s needed.
5. Detachment & the Gita’s Gentle Disruption
When Krishna tells Arjun to detach, it sounds so… cold. “Do your duty and don’t seek the fruits.” But what I’ve realised slowly, achingly is that detachment isn’t emotional suppression. It’s emotional clarity.
You don’t stop caring. You just stop clinging. You let the world break, knowing you can still stand. You offer love, not to control outcomes, but to honour what’s within you.
Detachment is not about going numb. It’s about going inward. Doing your part with a full heart, and knowing the results aren’t your burden to carry. It hurts. And then it frees you.
How It Still Lives In Us and Around Us
Today’s Mahabharat is on our Slack groups, our Instagram replies, our 3 a.m. text drafts. It’s when a boss stays silent in a sexist meeting. It’s when you meet someone who finally sees you, and you stay long after they stop showing up. It’s when you gamble away peace for the illusion of control.
We’re all in the war. Every day. Just wearing jeans instead of armour.
So What Did I Learn?
That nobody in the Mahabharat is perfect. That nobody in life is either. And maybe that’s the point. To know that good people can make bad choices. That justice doesn’t always feel fair. But grace is choosing to keep showing up. Softly. Unbitterly. Lightly.
The Mahabharat doesn’t give me answers. But it does keep me company. When I can’t make sense of silence. When I burn with longing. When I’m trying to be better but also just trying to get through the day.
It tells me: you’re not wrong to feel. Just don’t forget to choose. Even if the choice lies somewhere between black and white. Even if it’s messy. Even if all you can do is whisper, “I’ll try again tomorrow.”
The Mahabharat doesn’t tell me how to fix my life. It doesn’t soothe me with promises. It just stays. Next to me when I can’t sleep, when I make the same mistakes again. And in that staying, I’ve realised something: I am not outside the story. I’m inside it. Karna ached to be chosen, Bhishma stayed silent when it mattered, Draupadi burned but still walked forward. And me? I’ve ached. I’ve stayed quiet. I’ve burned too.
Suddenly, I’m not outside the story. I’m one of its threads.
And maybe that’s the fire the epic leaves behind:
- That dharma isn’t about never falling, it’s about what you choose after you fall.
- That detachment isn’t about numbing yourself, it’s about loving without tying yourself in knots.
- That being human isn’t about black or white, good or evil, winning or losing. It’s about walking through the greys without losing your softness.
So what do I take away? That we will all gamble away things we should’ve held tight. We will all stay in rooms too long where silence eats us alive. We will all burn sometimes with rage, sometimes with love. But the point is not to avoid the fire. The point is to come out of it still human. Scarred, yes, but still able to feel, to speak, to love, to try again.
That’s where dharma lives. Not in perfection. But in choosing, again and again, even when it’s messy. And that’s why, thousands of years later, the Mahabharat still feels like home.
The Devil is in the Dee-tails :) 
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