MB10-Winning by ‘hook or crook’!

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After the fall of Bhishma, there was some hope that the war would end. Bhishma tried his best to dissuade the Kauravas from further massacre.

But the evil Kauravas were far from reforming. They somehow wanted to eliminate the Pandavas ‘by hook or crook’ as they say.

All of them approached the next great warrior on their side, namely Drona and had a long discussion with him. Drona was the teacher of both Pandavas and the Kauravas. He was not only a great teacher, but also was a highly skilled warrior.

Duryodhana, the eldest of the Kauravas knew that Drona would never slay his beloved disciples, namely the Pandavas. So, he sketched out a very devious plan.

He told Drona that he was not interested in killing the Pandavas but was only interested in somehow subjugating them. His plan was to capture the eldest of the Pandavas, namely Yudhishthira.
Once Yudhishthira was captured, he said, the rest of the Pandavas would be helpless since they would not want to risk Yudhishthira’s life.

Duryodhana did not disclose his entire plan. Actually, his plan was to somehow manipulate Yudhishthira and make him his slave or send him back to the forest indefinitely as he had done earlier.


Duryodhana had a long history of trying to eliminate Pandavas by devious means. When they were still young, Duryodhana poisoned them with the intention to kill. But the Pandavas were miraculously saved.

On another occasion Duryodhana conspired to kill the Pandavas by setting fire to the palace when they were fast asleep. But the Pandavas managed to escape safely in the nick of time.

Duryodhana even took advantage of the weakness of Yudhishthira and engaged him in a deceitful game of dice. He made Yudhishthira wager and lose all his Kingdom, and retire to the forest for 13 years. And when they finally returned after going through that ordeal, he refused to return back even a fragment of their Kingdom. He chose to go for war instead.

And now, he was trying another of his heinous plans taking the help of Drona.

Duryodhana explained his plan to Drona without completely disclosing his intentions. He said that he just wanted to capture Yudhishthira so that the war could end.

This plan suited Drona too, since it did not involve much bloodshed.


But there was a catch.

Drona knew that as long as Arjuna was around, there was no way they could capture Yudhishthira. Drona was well aware of Arjuna’s abilities. So, it was decided to keep Arjuna busy on some other distant part of the war field, while the Kauravas led by Drona targeted Yudhishthira.


A group of warriors by name Samsaptakas apparently had a long-term enmity with Arjuna. So, as part of Duryodhana’s game plan, these warriors challenged Arjuna, and made him move to a distant part of the war field and kept him engaged.

Drona took this opportunity, and started attacking rest of the Pandavas and their army, with the intent of capturing Yudhishthira.

There was fierce battle and it appeared as if Drona almost succeeded in capturing Yudhishthira in spite of stiff resistance posed by rest of the Pandavas. The only way left for Yudhishthira was to flee from the war field.


Yudhishthira started running away escaping from the Kaurava warriors led by Drona.

In the ensuing confusion, lot more lives were sacrificed. But finally, Drona was not successful in capturing Yudhishthira. The day ended with a disappointed Drona, calling off the war for the day.


Drona, like Bhishma seemed to have a strange relationship towards the Pandavas. On one hand, Drona admired the Pandavas and loved them. He was even partial to them. But at the same time, he had his loyalty to the throne which was occupied by Duryodhana at that time. Drona had no sympathy for Duryodhana but he was merely bound by his loyalty. He was dancing to his tunes unwillingly.

Did Drona also have a reason that bound him to the throne of Hastinapur like Bhishma had? Why could he not openly oppose Duryodhana when he fully knew his intentions and his ways? Afterall, even Duryodhana was his student and he had every right to correct his student or at least disagree with him. Why was he helpless?

We will see that in the next episode.

That was Mahabharata episode 10

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Based on the 5000 year old Indian Epic namely Mahabharata. © Dr.King  2019.