I have come to the part of the story which I

have been dreading. The part of the story

everyone knows about. The part that has

been written, over and over again. I do not

want to write about it.

Yes, the war was fought. I orchestrated it. I

did not want war, yet the alternative was out

of the question, so I enabled the eighteen-day

battle of the kings.

The war that took place between the

Pandavas on one side and the Kaurava clan

on the other involved almost every empire to

the east of Indus. They fought for the throne

of Hastinapur. A kingdom on the banks of

the river Ganga, one of the oldest, boasting

such an illustrious lineage of Kings that the

lands east of the Indus would derive its name

from one. Bharat. A kingdom that was now

staring into the eyes of civil war. Cousins

were fighting for the crown. This is a story

so well known that I do not want to recount it

one more time.

One billion, six hundred and sixty-six

million, and twenty thousand men would be

slain in the course of the Great Battle of

Kurukshetra. The death of those men haunts

me now, but it did not touch me as I sat as

charioteer to Arjun. I had sworn not to lift

my weapons on anyone in the war, but I

could not forsake Arjun. I had to stand by

him. He was Krishnaa's husband. Before the

war, when both the Kauravas and the

Pandavas had been trying to find allies,

Duryodhana and Arjun both had come to me

looking for an alliance. My offer was my

army to one, myself unarmed to the other.

Duryodhana had the right of the first choice.

He chose my army. The man itching to

defeat a warrior like Arjun did not know that

troops and soldiers never win wars; however,

trained they may be, but by strategy, with the

mind, by clever tricks and the spirit of

indefeasibility. Duryodhana chose my army.

Arjun always wanted me. And I had to be

with him if Krishnaa was to be avenged.

Arjun fell apart before the battle had begun. I

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

picked him up, set him right. I was his spine

when he could not stand straight and tall to

release fatal arrows on those he knew as his

own. I stood by him and was the voice in his

head that gave him the courage to find his

valour, his warrior soul, and defeat the

strongest army known to the world.

The people of this land say I gave the world

The Gita- the greatest treatise on

transcendental knowledge. As I talked to

Arjuna that day, at the heart of the

battlefield, an army on either side, I showed

him what it is to be a man, to be God. I

showed him the one universal truth. I showed

him the essence of the divine and the divine

itself.

The truth is I do not recollect what I said. I

spoke for a long time, using all the loquacity

and glibness I had at my disposal. I spoke

from the heart. I spoke my truth. It was not

something I had rehearsed. I knew that at this

moment, it was imperative that Arjun should

raise his bow and deliver, as per a warrior of

his stature. This was not the time to dwell

over the why and how of our actions. There

is a time for indecisiveness, a time for

mulling over our own deeper motives, a time

to question the screenplay, the script, but that

time is not when the curtains have parted,

and the actor stands in the spotlight while the

audience waits with bated breath, for the first

act to begin.

They call me a God, and I am one if weighed

on the parameters that define godhood. On

the battlefield that fateful day I saw Arjun

pause, blinded by the spotlight, conscious of

the audience before him. This was war. The

audience was not meant to see the carnage

that was to take place. They were

participants. Arjun needed to run his sword

through them, aim his arrows at their hearts.

He could not do it, falling apart,

remembering embraces, affection, and love.

To be able to destroy, you must rid your

heart and mind of every emotion. Arjun must

not feel while he fought, and I had to ensure

that. I needed to lock away his humanity for

the duration of the war, which I did.

And I did it with my words. I spoke. And my

words became the most powerful weapon

that unleashed the most mortiferous attack on

those who chose the wrong side, the side I

was not on.

The first to fall was a young man named

Uttama, the son of King Virat.

Only twelve warriors survived the

Mahabharata. I was one of them, but then I

was not the one fighting, or