Before Pandu died, he was an excellent father to his sons
and a superb uncle to his nephews. He tried to make sure that they were aware
of how the Kingdom was run and aware of all of their subjects in town. He
wanted to make sure the boys would know how to act when they would be in charge
one day. When Pandu would go out into the town to visit with subjects, he would
take his eldest son to learn and would take his eldest nephew to learn too.
Yudhistira and Duryodhana enjoyed getting to go out into town with Pandu and
looked forward to the outing each week.
On one particular week while the boys, Yudhistira and
Duryodhana, were out with Pandu they noticed a group of men playing a game back
behind a shop. Since Pandu was busy talking with the shop owner, the boys
wanted to get a closer look. Intrigued they went to inquire what the men were
playing.
One of the men explained that it was a dice game. They
informed the boys that the best part of the game is when you get to yell out
"I win!" The men let the boys take turns through the dice and yelling
out "I win1" While Duryodhana liked throwing the dice, he noticed how
much Yudhistira enjoyed throwing the dice. He would become impatient waiting
for his turn. The men laughed and said Yudhistira understood how much fun the
game could be.
After Pandu was done talking with the shop owner, he went to
find the boys. When he heard them around the back of the shop yelling "I
win," he went to investigate what they were playing. When he saw what the
boys were playing, he immediately ordered them to quit playing and that they
must leave at once.
On their way back to the palace Pandu explained to the boys
how dice is a gambling game and it was a great sin to play it. He warned both
of them never to play the game again. Pandu told the boys, "A great king
can lose everything in a gambling game, there is no skill in playing the game.
Promise me you will never play a dice game again."
Both of the boys apologized and promised never to play the
game again. Duryodhana knew as they left the town that he would have to keep an
eye on Yudhistira. He seemed to be entranced by the dice game.
Author’s Notes: In the story of The Mahabharata by R.K. Narayan it seems that the Pandavas
brothers are blessed by the gods. Even when their cousin attempts to kill them in
a fire they are able to escape and then create a grand kingdom of their own in Indraprastha.
Yet later in the story Yudhistira loses everything because of his obsession with
playing the dice game. Yudhistira even acknowledges that the game is evil and
they should not play. But sadly, he agrees to play the game and gets carried
away. This story is meant to explain why Yudhistira becomes so obsessed and
blinded when playing the dice game against Sakuni on Duryodhana behalf. This story
shows that Duryodhana knew that Yudhistira had enjoyed the dice game when they
were little and that he could use this game to be the downfall to the Pandavas
brothers. I wanted to make it where
******
Image: Gambling dice. Source: Max Pixel
Hello Ashley. I enjoyed you gave your own back ground on Yudhistira actions in the Mahabharata. It was nice to see Pandu act as the wise king he was. The title of your story is also great. Bad habits do often start at young ages. A problem witht he story is it's unlikely that the sons would break the promise made to their father. Other than that, it was a great story.
ReplyDeleteHello Ashley!
ReplyDeleteI like how most of your stories start out with a bold opening statement. It allows readers to have a super synopsis of the story they are about to read. There was a bit of a typo on the second "I win!" There was a 1 instead of an !. I think it was a great story. I like how at the end, you kind of alluded to the fact that Yudhistira might become addicted to gambling when he became older. It is also pretty relevant to today, since others face gambling addiction. Nice story!