As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
I have two favorite scenes in cinema, one is Shakespeare in Henry V, where Exeter faces off against the French King. I have written of this moving scene before.
My other favorite is from the Indian epic, Mahabharata, in the version directed by Peter Brooks.
Below is the only scene I could find online of the gambling scene, portrayed by one of thee most overlooked actors in history in the Turk, Tuncel Kurtiz. I will meet you on the other side to set this up so you understand it, and tell you that from this game, the war that ends the world is started.
TUNCEL KURTİZ - MAHABHARATA
In the above screen grab, you see in the middle, SHAKURI. he is the master gambler. He knows all the throws and wins every time. On his right is his sister in a blindfold. She wears this because her second husband, a prince, was blind, and she vowed to also be blind in this way.
Her first husband was a goat.This is nothing perverted, but her father the King foresaw in her horoscope that her first husband would die. So in order to cheat fate, they married her to a goat which died, and she then married the husband who was intended.
The couple had a number of children, one of her elder sons is pictured on the left by his Uncle Shakuri. He is troubled by the forces arrayed against him and the kingdom, and seeks advantage this is why Shakuri has been summoned but the Uncle a mission of his own, sworn upon him by his father the King, upon the King's death.
See Shakuni's sister married a rival kings son. and they did not know about the goat marriage. They were furious when they discovered this, and promptly imprisoned her father and all of her brothers. As the law stated they could not execute them. it was devised that they would starve them to death by only providing a hand full of rice each day to the entire family.
The father, decided that in order for the family to survive, one person should get the daily ration. This was the youngest son, Shakuri. You know now the vow for revenge which the King made his son swear on his death. You will learn about the the dice which Shakuni plays in the throws in which he never loses.
When Shakuni, the last of this family, save his sister buried his father the King. he took his bones and made magical dice of them. In history dice were always made from knuckle bones, and Shakuni's powerful dice were made from the knuckle bones of his father, sworn to revenge for the murder of his family.
When you know the history of this game that has begun and what is taking place as Shakuni takes on Krishna in this match. Shakuni is often portrayed in a devious light, but Tuncil Kuritz plays the part masterfully as it should. He is shrewd, he is arrogantly sure, and he is going to carry out his mission of family revenge.
Most of you have heard the lines from this Indian epic and their heroic characters, but you do not know the source.
Aug 30, 2014 ... “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds” is, perhaps, the most well-known line from the Bhagavad-Gita.
This is what follows the game as events pile up and as the two warring royal families gather, what forms is a debate of what is honor. One person says it is not honorable to kill family and friends, and the other counsels it is not honorable to fight a war. The war takes place.
I have a comment I post below to add background to this.
Epics As Moral Codes (Or Political Propaganda): The epic nearly always:
Represents moral ideals and taboos in the behavior of the hero and antagonist. The hero's behavior and the lessons he learns along the way represent the culture's ideals; what the hero does, all men should strive toward. The Other (monster or antagonist) is shown as essentially/inherently inferior to the hero; the Other represents either those who break moral taboos or the inferiority of Other cultures/peoples/nations etc.
The Mahabaratha tosses all this moral correctness out the window. The bad guys aren't bad guys in the classical sense and the good guys are well...as flawed as the bad guys.
Duroydhana the main bad guy of sorts was a very wise, just ruler and praised by his subjects. Karna his best friend (and on the bad guys camp) was arguably the purest character in the epic and had no flaw but...his extreme sense of loyalty (which would be a virtue in any other epic) was his biggest flaw.
Take the so called good guys,
Krishna (the main protagonist and the mortal avatar of Lord Vishnu), he was short tempered, he cheated, he lied and wasn't averse to breaking all moral codes and using his godly powers to kill opponents (he was stopped from doing it though). Yudhistra, the noble king who doesn't ever lie, well he is a gambler who staked his own kingdom, brothers, wife and lost them all. Wins them back, and stakes them all again promptly.
This is the context to the characters that populate this epic.
Moving on to the epic itself, it is a tale of the 100 Kaurava brothers (the possible antagonists) and their war of succession against the 5 Pandava brothers. To cut a long story shot, the Kaurava's (especially the eldest, Duryodhana) aided by his scheming uncle Shakuni (he also has a back story that puts his scheming ways in a different and more moral light) cheats the Pandava's of their rightful kingdom.
After a lot of travails (including an extended exile in the wilds of India), the Pandava's come back to stake their claim. Duryodhana refuses, and he is backed (either willingly or silently) by the entire Kuru (kingdom that is under dispute) court.
The Pandava's throw down the gauntlet, and armies are called on both sides. Vassals summoned, and two massive armies meet on the battlefield of Kurukshetra.
The best warrior in the Pandava side is the Prince, Prince Arjuna and his charioteer is the Lord himself in his human form - Lord Krishna. Terms are discussed, the rules for the war are framed (infantry will fight only infantry, cease fire at dusk, wounded will be tended to irrespective of their side etc etc). Yudhistra (he was despite his failings, very noble) tries one last attempt at peace and asks for 5 villages. Duryodhana wants it all and refuses and the battle is on.
Prince Arjuna had sought boons from many a god to add to his already formidable base martial values and was the pivot around which the Pandava army revolved....and he gets cold feet.
Picture this, the battle lines are formed. Pin drop silence just before the battle and this mightiest of mighty warriors throws down his bow and arrow, shrugs his armour and tells his King that he ain't down to fight. Fighting would mean killing his own cousins, his own teacher, his own uncle, his friends (who had joined the Kaurava side). Killing all these people would be 'ADHARMA" (against honour) and walks back to his lines.
That is when Krishna begins the sermon that is now called the Gita. In this he essentially (very summarized version, a tl;dr if you will) tells Arjuna that not doing his duty would be ADHARMA. That every person in this world has a duty, a job and to not fulfill those duties is ADHARMA. If Arjuna's duties involved massacring all his relatives, that is what it is. Krishna then goes onto talk about Karma (not the internet points, but real Karma), and the choices humans make and how illusionary it is. He says that the entire world is "Maya" (illusion) and pain, pride, hurt, love are all facets of this illusionary world.
Arjuna is still not convinced (the sermon segues into a dialogue between the two) and to prove his point, Krishna becomes the Immortal God Vishnu.
Arjuna goes to war and as was his duty, slaughters tens of thousands, including his own relatives & friends.
The Pandavas rule the kingdom and as promised by Krishna, he meets them all in heaven (they all ultimately achieved their purpose on earth as deemed by the god) and it ends happily ever after. It would be interesting to note that the most noblest man in the tale is the only one to actually see a glimpse of heaven.
The epic is wonderfully too long and bizarre by Western norms, until one starts on the Viking sagas and other European sagas, and then the mythical and mystical parts of this story are quite at home.
Peter Brooks did a superb production of this Indian classic which is sort of a cross between the Greek Heroes meeting Shakespeare drama.
It is though one of my favorite moments in literature.
Nuff Said
agtG
