Chapter 34 : Demonic mutant beast
"But I was only trying to find out whether this boy is truly a good friend to our son or not."
Dhritarashtra explained why he had asked that question, but Queen Gandhari spoke clearly to her husband, telling him not to question the boy in that manner.
King Dhritarashtra helplessly nodded his head after all, which husband can really go against his wife's words?
Seeing this, I decided to explain why I had accepted Duryodhana as a friend.
I began, "Maharaj, I became Prince Duryodhana's friend because he was the one who first extended the hand of friendship to me."
"What? Is that so?" Duryodhana's father was astonished.
He knew very well how arrogant his son could be. He did not easily offer friendship to anyone, and hardly anyone wished to befriend his son either.
"If our son extended the hand of friendship, then there must be something special about this boy, Karna." With that thought, he waited for me to continue speaking.
I continued, "It's not just because Duryodhana took the first step that I became his friend. I became his friend because I don't believe that Duryodhana lacks the qualities needed for friendship."
Hearing this, Duryodhana lifted his head with pride. Dhritarashtra and Gandhari were shocked finding someone in Hastinapur who could speak this way was extremely rare, almost impossible.
In that era, blind beliefs were deeply ingrained. People left no opportunity to label even the smallest or largest events as either inauspicious or auspicious.
For example, people interpreted the sound of lightning in the clouds as the anger of Lord Indra.
Although gods do exist in this world, and sometimes the sound of lightning may indeed involve the hand of Devraj Indra, it is not true that Indra is behind every sound of thunder.
You all know why lightning is formed in the sky: when two clouds collide with each other, a white energy is created, which then rushes downward at tremendous speed this is what we call lightning.
Most lightning loses its energy before reaching the ground, which is why it cannot come down fully.
But some lightning does reach the ground sometimes striking the earth, a house, or other places.
If lightning strikes a poor person's house, the house can be completely burned to ashes, and there is a high chance that the neighboring houses will also catch fire.
This is because, in that era, about 90 percent of poor people's houses had roofs made of bundles of straw.
And one more thing I mentioned only poor people's houses, not the houses of any particular caste.
If an incident like the one I described were to happen, I can say with certainty that it would give rise to blind superstition.
People would start saying that the members of that household must have angered Lord Indra, or that someone there was sinful, and many such things.
Because of this, there would be a very high chance that the people living in that house would be ostracized by society.
If they belonged to the Shudra caste, then it would almost be permanent there would be a very high chance of them being ostracized from society, and those who carried this out would mostly come from the Brahmin caste.
But if it were a poor Brahmin household, then no questions would be raised at all, as if nothing had ever happened.
If lightning were to strike the place where a king lived, the Brahmins would come forward and tell the king that this was the wrath of Devraj Indra, and they would advise him to conduct grand yajnas to resolve it.
In this way, they would receive a substantial dakshina. Such practices were common in that era.
And the king who became a victim of this would not question it at all; he would do whatever the Brahmins told him to do.
In this way, many inauspicious and auspicious events are created, and the Brahmins take great advantage of them with much pomp and show.
....
As for the talk about Duryodhana being inauspicious, I do not believe in auspiciousness or inauspiciousness at all. Auspicious and inauspicious things do not really exist everything is done by God, so how can we divide His actions into auspicious or inauspicious?
Let me give an example: suppose light is considered auspicious and darkness inauspicious.
King Dhritarashtra, Queen Gandhari, and Duryodhana were listening to my words very attentively. For them, this way of thinking was completely new; they had never looked at things like this before.
I continued speaking, "If we consider darkness inauspicious and never accept it, imagine a world where there is only day and never night. What problems would such a world face?"
I posed this question to them; now it was time for the three of them to think.
"Because I am blind, I have never seen day or night, but I have felt what day and night are like. During the day, one feels energetic while doing any work, and at night the fatigue gathered during the day fades away.
If I accept what you are saying and remove night altogether, my tiredness would never go away. I would become irritable every day, and many kinds of illnesses would arise.
Also, in my childhood I heard from my guru that more than half of the plants in the world need the heat of the day and the coolness of the night in order to grow.
So, if there were no night, the plants would die, and because of the heat the world would fall into chaos."
King Dhritarashtra gave this reply; he had never thought about it in this way before.
Queen Gandhari and Duryodhan were also astonished.
"You have said absolutely the right thing. Just as one expects from a king, you are very wise," I said, praising him.
Then, smiling, I added, "If this happens, people's way of thinking will change. Now they will start calling day and light inauspicious, and night that is, darkness auspicious, because they will have realized how important night is for them."
"In this way, I believe that there is no such thing as inauspicious or auspicious. If something has been created by God, then it has been created with proper thought and purpose. That is why, without caring about such beliefs, I became friends with Duryadhan.
I finished explaining the reason behind my friendship."
"Karn son, we did not expect you to be so wise," he praised me and then asked, "By the way, which family do you belong to?"
"I cannot tell you about my family, but Duryadhan knows it, so there is no need for you to ask about it," I replied.
I refused politely. King Dhritarashtra and Queen Gandhari felt that it would not be right to ask further.
They also understood that everyone has some personal matters, and if someone does not wish to share them, they should not be forced to do so.
"Karn, don't call us King and Queen. Call us uncle and aunt instead. You are not a stranger to us," Aunt Gandhari said with a smile.
Uncle Dhritarashtra also expressed his agreement. They were already very pleased with my reasoning.
"Karn son, you have made me very happy today. Today my son has found a friend like you, and I have learned a valuable lesson—one that I had never learned before. So ask for any reward you wish; I am ready to grant it to you,"
Uncle Dhritarashtra said with a joyful expression.
When I heard this, I decided not to let this opportunity slip away after all, it was being offered freely, and who would let such a chance go? So I prepared myself to ask for something.
I began to think about what I should ask for.
Then an idea came to my mind, and according to that, I decided what to ask for.
"Maharaj, if you are ready to give, then I will not hesitate to ask. I want some mutant beasts."
Because asuras and demons lived in this world, they also had blood, which great warriors often shed.
When they were killed, red blood mixed with black flowed from their bodies, and from this blood a strange demonic energy was released.
This blood had a special property it could attract animals and compel them to drink it.
Animals would get attracted and drink the blood. Some animals could not withstand such powerful energy within their bodies and would explode instantly with a loud boom.
Those that managed to endure it became mutated by the blood of demons and asuras and gained special abilities.
Because of this, they were called beasts tainted by demon blood; in short, they were commonly known as mutant beasts.
But all these mutant beasts had one problem: they were not in their right senses and would start causing destruction everywhere.
When the kings and warriors learned about all this, they immediately prepared to capture them.
To be continued...