Virtuous Qualities Of Kunti

Kunti, as we know, is one of the famous female characters of the world-famous epic of the Mahabharat. And we also know she needs no further introduction because her dignified personality has continuously become a quotable instance since the Mahabharat era. But still some important points, like what can we learn from Kunti’s ideals while facing challenges of our life and time now and in the future, or can anyone become graceful like her in both conditions of huge successes and extreme difficulties—the way she did and showed. 

In fact, these curiosities, which spontaneously come out while reading about Kunti, are meaningful in life for all time. So, we can ask a question in the context of an under-reviewed historical novel by Haribinod Adhikari: Are curiosities about Kunti worthy to inspire an author to write a separate novel? Indeed, the answer comes in positive form because she is the all-time inspiration to study and write books of literary merit for authors. But the difficulty is also there in it: to deal with Kunti’s gracious dignity in writing is challenging work.

 However, here in the novel Kunti, what we feel is that the author, Adhikari, has attentively built his thought process and gathered background knowledge for long to use his skills and talent of novel writing. It means his description is not only insightful, but it is that story through which we can even see our own life and time.

 In fact, when we talk about women’s rights and power today, we need to see the grace and dignity of our historical and religious female characters like Kunti. How does the novel interpret these facts? Clearly, Adhikari has his own vision and understanding, which is objectively accurate to acknowledge the precious role of women in society. The author is a media person with long teaching experience, and his stint as author is also a remarkable point to mention in the context of this under-reviewed novel. This means one needs to have a broad horizon to understand the awkward position in which Kunti lived, fought, and won the battle of life in the Mahabharat. Novelist Adhikari has been skilful at portraying that grace and dignity in the form of a novel.

 The author has said Kunti a soliloquy novel. That’s true, too, because there are plenty of reasons to feel honour for Kunti while reading the Mahabharat. Impressed by the novel, the preface author, Dr. Naba Raj Lamsal, who himself is the author of the epic Karna, has even mentioned that in the Kunti, its author has been flown like character Kunti herself to write about her. Lamsal also says the Mahabharat is the story of power struggles. Many characters burn in it, but virtuous Kunti gracefully hides her fire within, and compassion, motherhood, love, and her morale always keep shining throughout the power struggle of the Mahabharat. No doubt, Kunti is the icon of mothers, and she commands separate honour to become the theme of the Mahabharat epic to write a novel. Haribinod Adhikari has beautifully fulfilled this creative responsibility by writing a novel on Kunti.

In fact, Kunti has a great power to understand the complexity of changing phenomena in the palace politics. The author in this novel has given a shape to this story in colloquial form of language. We can present a few examples from the novel:

Kunti talks to herself to reach the true cause: ‘Maybe no one knew the powerful King Pandu was not able to have babies. The real event to ponder over is the killing of Rhishi’s son Kindim, who was having sex in the form of deer in the jungle, and his curse, which he pronounced for the king before dying. I think the King had been searching for one or another pretext to avoid royal responsibility for the cause of his reproductive inability.’

About Lord Krishna, the novelist catches the same spirit of colloquial speaking of Kunti. She says, Krishna said to me, ‘No, sister, I, too, must reach Dwaraka to fulfil my promise. I am also going to be killed by someone. 

This is all shocking. After all, what kind of responsibility is my brother’s son (Krishna is the son of Kunti’s brother) fulfilling!’ (Page: 89 in the book).

Thus, Kunti finds truth about Krishna with her graceful observation and concludes: It seems Krishna is omnipotent. He has the power to see all—past, present, and future. But he also repeatedly says he, too, can’t alter the rules of nature.

The charisma, grace, confidence, and power of truth assessment in Kunti are also described in the end page of the novel, too. The lines are: ‘The ultimate truth is the end of life. My eager waiting has been complete. I see only Krishna all around while closing my eyes to prepare for the Samadhi of fire.’

  Kunti is not a character just to turn pages of the Mahabharat epic only. She needs to be taken to many vernacular languages of peoples and readers. The sweet presentation of this novel by Adhikari will certainly be welcomed by readers for this purpose.

(Kafle is a former deputy executive editor of this daily.)