Rewriting the Mahabharata from Arjuna and Ashwatthama’s viewpoint, Lidchi-Grassi provides a novel perspective.
This is not a complete account of the Mahabharata, the epic that claims to contain everything that is found elsewhere and what it does not have is not to be found anywhere. Maggi Lidchi-Grassi, a writer who has been staying at the Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry since 1959, has completed a massive task in narrating the world’s longest epic in the form of a modern novel, using the techniques that British novelists had perfected in the early 20th century. This is the much-celebrated style of telling a story through the perspectives of different key players. The omnipresence of the author in the narrative is missing, but this is what paves the way for a slightly slanted, though factual, perspective of the events.
Although Lidchi-Grassi uses the technique, she refrains from creating a Rashomon effect, which Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa achieved in his celebrated film by the same name because he used the subjective perceptions of different characters to present varying but plausible accounts of the same storyline. But Lidchi-Grassi chooses to avoid rendering the same incidents by more than one character. Thus, there are only Arjuna and Ashwatthama, who take turns to tell the story of the Mahabharata without repeating what the other has already narrated. This might have made Lidchi-Grassi’s job simpler, but after reading 900-odd pages, the reader may well wonder if the writer has lost a major opportunity. The potential for recreating how, for instance, Arjuna and Ashwatthama would each have viewed the dice game or even Krishna’s conduct on the battlefield was huge.
Equally intriguing is her choice of the two characters through whom she narrates the story of the epic. Ashwatthama narrates the early chapters in the first section — aptly called “The Battle of Kurukshetra” — and Arjuna renders the remaining chapters in the first section and all the chapters in the remaining two sections — “The Legs of the Tortoise” and “The Great Golden Sacrifice of the Mahabharata”. Why Arjuna and Ashwatthama? Arjuna, as the second Pandava brother, needs no introduction and the choice is understandable. In many ways, the Mahabharata is all about him — the man who has all the classical attributes of a Greek tragic hero. In contrast, Ashwatthama is a minor character in the Mahabharata. He is the son of Dronacharya, the Brahmin guru of the Pandavas and the Kauravas. Ashwatthama became immortal in the epic not because of his own exploits on the battlefield, but for the manner in which the Pandavas, including, of all people, Dharmaraj Yudhishthir, used the false news of his death to disarm the invincible Dronacharya and take advantage of that opportunity to eliminate him.
Yet, Lidchi-Grassi’s use of Ashwatthama demonstrates what a powerful storyteller she is. Her narrative begins with Ashwatthama’s regret that his desire for milk is what caused his father’s involvement in the war between the Pandavas and Kauravas. Dronacharya was a poor Brahmin, but a great teacher. Dronacharya was so poor that he could not afford milk for young Ashwatthama, but when the young boy became desperate, the poor Brahmin father had no option but to knock on the doors of his old friend, the king of Panchal, who also happened to be the father of Draupadi. The Panchal king disowned that friendship and refused to honour a boon that he had granted to Dronacharya. Angry and rebuffed by his old friend, Dronacharya turned to Dhritarashtra and offered to teach the Pandava and Kaurava boys. The significance of Ashwatthama’s regret at having asked for milk is now understandable.
Admittedly, it is a Brahmin’s perspective and, without consciously outlining it, the author hints at the thinly veiled conflicts and collisions that marked the relationship between the Brahmins and Kshatriyas in the Mahabharata. In a poignant narration of Arjuna’s battlefield dilemmas, she dwells at length on the irony of a Kshatriya killing his Brahmin Guru, who, in order to favour his Kshatriya disciple, had earlier eliminated all the competition that could have come from a low-caste disciple. There are no prizes here for guessing that the Kshatriya in question is Arjuna, the Brahmin is none else than Dronacharya and the low-caste disciple is Eklavya. Indeed, Lidchi-Grassi succeeds in bringing out through Arjuna’s renderings the Kshatriya’s sense of remorse at having dealt the Brahmins a raw deal.
Equally evident in this book is Lidchi-Grassi’s painstaking work and erudition in deciphering the intricate Sanskrit text of the Mahabharata, unravelling small but significant details of the many turns and twists in the epic that make reading her narrative much more rewarding and enriching. Arjuna’s mouth dries up in the battlefield once he realises that he has to fight and kill his relatives. The dry mouth resurfaces as a motif later in Arjuna’s life — on his last journey before he collapses. Lidchi-Grassi uses this to drive home a larger point that no one can miss. Similarly, she brings out the tragic irony of the Pandavas’ victory in a remarkable fashion in the chapters on Yudhishthir’s expression of anguish at the Pandavas’ mother, Kunti, holding back the fact that Karna was her eldest son. If Kunti had revealed that Karna was her son, Yudhishthir laments, that the war would not have taken place since with Karna switching sides to the Pandavas, the Kauravs would have become very weak. There is a point where Yudhishthir goes to the extent of holding Kunti responsible for the war! It is here that you realise that the Mahabharata also has elements of great social drama.
Lidchi-Grassi’s Mahabharata is not to be confused with other recent books on the Mahabharata — neither with Gurcharan Das’s theorising on the epic’s many messages on dharma nor Bibek Debroy’s authentic translation of the epic from its original Sanskrit text. Lidchi-Grassi’s version is written like a novel, with each chapter unravelling a new perspective on the Mahabharata. Unlike a novel, though, and since it is such a well-known story, you can start from any chapter you like and still gain a fresh perspective or two on the epic.
THE GREAT GOLDEN SACRIFICE OF THE MAHABHARATA
Author: Maggi Lidchi-Grassi
Publisher: Random House
Pages: 934
Price: Rs 999
