The friction between the Kauravas and the Pandavas during their home-coming ceremony sets the stage for events that emphasise their mutual hostility right till the beginning of war.
Duryodhana, avaricious for the throne to which his claim is no less dharmic than Yudhistira’s, shares his ambition to his father who also shares the same thoughts. To clear his path, the two decide that the Pandavas need to be sent outside Hastinapur, to a town named Varanvata. This is needed also to allow the
father-son duo time and space to appease important personalities both inside and outside the kingdom, such that both public opinion and alliances are formed in the Kauravas’ favour. Duryodhana, however, has nastier plans, and wants to get rid of the Pandavas for good. He instructs Purochana, a previously unaccounted-for figure, to go to Varanvata and construct a house for the Pandavas, from inflammable materials.
After a ten-day stay in another house, the Pandavas are transferred to Purochana’s house. The silliness of the ploy (which makes me suspicious, but more on this later) is obvious when the smell of the place turns out to be peculiar and strong enough to suggest the entire scheme to the Pandavas in the very first instance.
The Pandavas choose deception over confrontation and choose to stay in the house. A certified digger, sent by Vidura, helps them make an escape tunnel in the case of emergency. Purochana, for some strange reason, stays inert for almost a year. Tired, perhaps, of the tense stalemate, Pandavas decide to set fire to the house by themselves, and to escape after leaving six charred bodies behind (one for Kunti), so as to provide evidence of their end to Dhritarashtra and Duryodhana.
But whose bodies should these be? The Pandavas, who repeatedly find themselves trapped in the highfalutin questions of dharma, don’t see any dharmic wrong in sacrificing six members of a family for their cause. They organise a feast, a hunter woman and her five sons are among the many who are in the house, the Pandavas spike their drinks (and Purochana’s), set fire to the house, and escape through the tunnel. The chilling lesson being that if you’re a tribal and find yourself before the Pandavas, you could be burnt alive serving the cause of righteousness.
The Pandavas’ deception delivers perfect results. The public calls out Duryodhana and Dhritarashtra as evil. The sympathy story also leaves the door open for future alliances with other kingdoms, as and when the Pandavas surface. History, we know, is written by the victor, and this should make us wonder if it could not have all been the Pandavas’ doing — the exile to Varanvata, the construction of a house of wax, its burning, the bodies inside — to turn public opinion towards their side, after the humiliation at the arena where Karna was anointed king of Anga.
(The writer’s first novel ‘Neon Noon’ is now available)