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Now, on to this week’s conversation!
Women are difficult/ impossible to understand.
I don’t claim to have knowledge on the topic, let alone be an expert.
But there’s something that I’ve understood about men.
We are simple creatures.
And we can be ‘figured out’ in a facet.
A man either wants to be like his father. Or not like him.
That’s the only way he spends his life.
And this applies to fathers and father figures.
Pandu was a just king. Yudhishthir grew up watching tough but fair behavior in Vidur and Kripacharya.
He wanted to be selfless like Bhishma, sacrificing himself for the greater good. Not caring what happens in the process.
He wanted to be like them.
And that influenced every decision he made.
He agreed when Kunti instructed the brothers to share a wife.
He kept silent when Draupadi was disrobed because the rules forbade him to.
He made every last effort to avoid the war.
And in the Mahaprasthan, he didn’t look back once, even when his brothers and wife fell to their deaths.
All this so that he could feel like he was doing the right thing – just as his father had.
Duryodhan grew up watching his blind father get a kingdom as a hand-me-down, just because the elder brother died.
Even while on the throne, he was king in name only. Vidur and Bhishma managed state affairs, and Krishna occasionally consulted on strategic decisions.
He wanted to be nothing like his father. He wanted to be powerful.
And that shaped his life choices.
As a child, he tried to murder Bheem.
He set fire to the Pandav’s palace in Indraprasth.
He shunned all efforts at diplomacy and settlement to prevent the Kurukshetra war, denying the Pandavas even a needle-point of territory.
During the war, he broke many rules and operated in bad faith.
All this so that he could feel powerful – something that his father never had.
For better or worse, this is how the masculine mind works. Mostly.
A man either wants to be like his father. Or not like him.
Now that you know this information, what will you do with this?
