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And then Father was fond of telling us this story which he called, 'Uttara Gograhan':
At the end of their 12-year forest-exile, the 5 Pandavas and their common wife, Draupadi, had to spend a year incognito without being found out by the Kauravas. Had they been discovered, they would have had to repeat the process of an additional 12-year exile followed by a year incognito...much like an IIT KGP student found out cheating in the final exam having to re-register and pass the course again without copying this time.
So they decided to assume false names and disguises and take refuge in the court of a nondescript king called Virat Raja. Yudhistir got employed as a teacher-cum-entertainer (like me) of the king. Bhim was a cook, Arjun a eunuch dance master (or is it mistress?), Nakul and Sahadev as grooms of the king's cattle and horses, and Draupadi as the queen's beautician.
For over a year the Kauravas tried their best employing their RAW to find and tease out the Pandavas but failed (naturally). Towards the very end of the final year, word spread that the Pandavas may be hiding in the court of Virat. So the Kauravas hatched a plan to smoke them out.
The younger brothers of the Kauravas with their armies stole and whisked away all the cows of Virat to the northern border of the tiny kingdom...this was just a ruse to ferret out all the armies and the king himself to the northern side to fight the thieves and retrieve their holy cows.
And it succeeded...Virat with all his army drove north to chase away the culprits.
Meanwhile, the entire Kaurava army led by Bhishm, Dron, Karn et al invaded the southern border of the kingdom...like in the Normandy Landings.
And word came to the empty court of Virat that Kauravas were invading the southern side. It so happened that the king's only son, an urchin called Uttara Kumar, fond of bragging, was left in charge of the court. And he was asked by the queen to go forth and fight the Kauravas. And he got cold feet and tried to excuse himself saying that he didn't have a charioteer although there was a chariot...apparently there was a scarcity of drivers in the tiny kingdom like now in Hyderabad.
Meanwhile Draupadi called Uttara Kumar's bluff saying that the eunuch dance teacher, Brihannala, was a good hobby-charioteer having once been in the employ of Arjun himself. So, Uttara Kumar had to dress himself up and go forth. And he had a younger sister in her preteens, called Uttaraa. And she approached her brother and asked him to bring her some lovely memento of his victory as a gift for her dolls.
And as they drove towards the southern border, the dance-teacher-eunuch stopped the chariot under a shami tree and asked Uttara Kumar to go up the tree and fetch a bundle of weapons that the Pandavas had hidden up a branch of the tree before they took up their incognito. Uttara Kumar went up the tree but dropped down promptly because, instead of a bundle, he finds a corpse hanging up there.
Brihannala laughs at the timidity of Uttara Kumar and asks him to fetch the corpse down, no harm. But Uttara Kumar declines and the eunuch had to go up herself and bring the false bundle down and open it and pick out the Gandiva, the famed bow-and-arrow set of Arjun. As Brihannala twangs the Gandiva, Uttara Kumar swoons and had to be revived.
And as the duo drive towards the invading army, Uttara Kumar catches sight of it ranging from horizon to horizon and gets scared and jumps down the chariot and runs back and Bihannala had to chase and fetch the lad assuring that she herself would do the fighting and Uttara Kumar had to just take up the driver's seat:
And the Simian Brigade of Hyderabad said that the tear gas shells and stun grenades were nothing new to brag about since their Arjun had the much more powerful Sammohana Astra, no?
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And then Father was fond of telling us this story which he called, 'Uttara Gograhan':
At the end of their 12-year forest-exile, the 5 Pandavas and their common wife, Draupadi, had to spend a year incognito without being found out by the Kauravas. Had they been discovered, they would have had to repeat the process of an additional 12-year exile followed by a year incognito...much like an IIT KGP student found out cheating in the final exam having to re-register and pass the course again without copying this time.
So they decided to assume false names and disguises and take refuge in the court of a nondescript king called Virat Raja. Yudhistir got employed as a teacher-cum-entertainer (like me) of the king. Bhim was a cook, Arjun a eunuch dance master (or is it mistress?), Nakul and Sahadev as grooms of the king's cattle and horses, and Draupadi as the queen's beautician.
For over a year the Kauravas tried their best employing their RAW to find and tease out the Pandavas but failed (naturally). Towards the very end of the final year, word spread that the Pandavas may be hiding in the court of Virat. So the Kauravas hatched a plan to smoke them out.
The younger brothers of the Kauravas with their armies stole and whisked away all the cows of Virat to the northern border of the tiny kingdom...this was just a ruse to ferret out all the armies and the king himself to the northern side to fight the thieves and retrieve their holy cows.
And it succeeded...Virat with all his army drove north to chase away the culprits.
Meanwhile, the entire Kaurava army led by Bhishm, Dron, Karn et al invaded the southern border of the kingdom...like in the Normandy Landings.
And word came to the empty court of Virat that Kauravas were invading the southern side. It so happened that the king's only son, an urchin called Uttara Kumar, fond of bragging, was left in charge of the court. And he was asked by the queen to go forth and fight the Kauravas. And he got cold feet and tried to excuse himself saying that he didn't have a charioteer although there was a chariot...apparently there was a scarcity of drivers in the tiny kingdom like now in Hyderabad.
Meanwhile Draupadi called Uttara Kumar's bluff saying that the eunuch dance teacher, Brihannala, was a good hobby-charioteer having once been in the employ of Arjun himself. So, Uttara Kumar had to dress himself up and go forth. And he had a younger sister in her preteens, called Uttaraa. And she approached her brother and asked him to bring her some lovely memento of his victory as a gift for her dolls.
And as they drove towards the southern border, the dance-teacher-eunuch stopped the chariot under a shami tree and asked Uttara Kumar to go up the tree and fetch a bundle of weapons that the Pandavas had hidden up a branch of the tree before they took up their incognito. Uttara Kumar went up the tree but dropped down promptly because, instead of a bundle, he finds a corpse hanging up there.
Brihannala laughs at the timidity of Uttara Kumar and asks him to fetch the corpse down, no harm. But Uttara Kumar declines and the eunuch had to go up herself and bring the false bundle down and open it and pick out the Gandiva, the famed bow-and-arrow set of Arjun. As Brihannala twangs the Gandiva, Uttara Kumar swoons and had to be revived.
And as the duo drive towards the invading army, Uttara Kumar catches sight of it ranging from horizon to horizon and gets scared and jumps down the chariot and runs back and Bihannala had to chase and fetch the lad assuring that she herself would do the fighting and Uttara Kumar had to just take up the driver's seat:
And as they approach the vast army, Arjun (aka Brihannala) fires his first salvo which was called the Sammohana Aastra. This had the unique feature that as it approaches the enemy army from above, everyone below swoons for a good fifteen minutes...like it happened in the topology paper set by Prof Jain at IIT KGP in the 1990s.
And as the foot soldiers lie down on the ground as good as dead, Brihannala asks Uttara Kumar to go forth and cut up the ribbons dangling from their headgear. Which he does and brings back the ribbons as the gift-memento he promised to his fond sister.
And the duo get back to their court after the Kauravas wake up dazed and stupefied and retreat with all their armies to fight another day.
The other day there was this news item that a vast rowdy crowd in Hyderabad was quelled by the police who had to use tear gas shells and stun grenades to stupefy the rebels:
And the Simian Brigade of Hyderabad said that the tear gas shells and stun grenades were nothing new to brag about since their Arjun had the much more powerful Sammohana Astra, no?
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