Reading Diary B: Narayan's Mahabharata

It finally happened! The epic battle that the whole book has been leading up to finally happened. I'm a sucker for big fight scenes, and I have to say this was by far my favorite part of the story. We see all of the characters that have been introduced throughout the story as well as number of characters who show up as reminders of brief or minor events from the beginning, like Bhima's rakshasa son. Following the events of the fight was really exciting, but I did think there was some silliness. Namely, Bhisma's falling on the bed of arrows.

Bhisma on the bed of arrows; Source; wikimedia

While this event is a bit strange in and of itself, I especially liked how everyone dropped what they were doing just to come and gawk at Bhisma. I guess the fighting wasn't that important? This is not the strangest thing to happen in the story, but it just stuck out to me as especially bizarre. The rest of the battle was fairly predictable: the righteous Pandavas overcome Duryodhana and his ilk, and then rule the kingdom. I can't tell if I like the character of Yudhistira or not. There are more than a few times where he laments his role as a kshatriya, which is understandable because he does not seem to like fighting and violence as much as his brothers. However, he still does a lot of stupid, rash things throughout the story. Bhima and Arjuna are both very aggressive, while the twins are there  just hanging out, so it's not hard to make Yudhistira seem like the rational one; but still, it seems strange that he was so willing to punish the Kaudavas but then talks about his unfortunate circumstances as a warrior.