The Sunset Samurai

1. What is your favourite fruit?
Almost any citrus. I love grapefruit and I'm glad I'm off the meds that didn't allow me to have them.

2. What is the last book you read?
"The Difficulty in Being Good" by Gurcharan Das, a book about ethics in the Mahabharata.

3. Do you like any of your school photos?
Holy shit no.

4. Do you ever blowdry your armpits to get the deodorant to dry quicker?
I'm sorry, do I WHAT?

5. What was the last film you watched?
Coco - the Pixar movie. Really enjoyed it :)

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Earlier in the summer I got my hands on a copy of The Mahabharata, the epic Indian tale that, among numerous other fascinating stories and digressions, contains the Bhagavad Gita. If you're anything like me you might have started reading the Gita and wondered who the heck are these people and what the heck is going on. This guy's charioteer is Krishna, like THE Krishna? Doesn't he know this? Why is he fighting his family? Where are we?

I've finished up three volumes of the massive ten-volume English translation by Bibek Debroy, who I found out died in November last year. He's also produced several other English versions of classic Indian epics which will be worth finding. His translation is highly readable, and his notes are great. This is and one other book are all I have to report on for my "Recent reading," but I have plenty of other books I'm in the middle of.

Volume one mostly set the scene. The various frame stories are being established, and it's a little like Inception in that someone's telling a story of this thing that happened, and there, someone starts telling a story of this other event, etc. Eventually we get down to a king who's the descendant of the famous Pandavas of the epic, who is conducting a snake sacrifice. His bride to be was bitten by a venomous snake and died, so like any reasonable person, he's vowed to kill every snake in the world. (This is making me think of Orpheus and Eurydice, who's bitten by a snake at her wedding party, but anyway, on with the show.) At some point the sacrifice is stopped, obviously the king of the nagas is appalled by the entire idea, and a story is told to the king about his ancestors. So here we are.

Volumes two and three are the early adventures of the Pandavas, five brothers who are all of divine parentage. Their mother was granted a boon that she could summon any god, so she summoned gods and had them beget sons on her (*fans self*), so they are all supernaturally strong and handsome. They have aroused the envy of a cousin from the Kourava clan, which sets this whole thing in motion as he tries to kill them. Eventually he gets the oldest to come and play dice with a buddy of his who's basically got loaded dice. He wins their entire kingdom and their servitude, but eventually things work out so that he gets their kingdom and they have to go into exile for twelve years. This is where I'm at now. The twelve years are almost up, and as part of their arrangement they will have to live in a town for one more year, but without anyone recognizing them.

The Mahabharata is often compared to other war epics like the Iliad - in fact, Arjuna is sometimes called the Indian Achilles. But the central concern here isn't war, it's dharma. In this case, dharma refers to the behaviors and destiny of each person and thing - the best explanation I've read is that the dharma of fire is to burn. Dharma indicates moral behavior, and doing what is right, even though what is right may conflict with traditions, or with other peoples' dharmas, or someone may be pulled himself between two opposite dharmas. Like Arjuna, torn between fulfilling his role as a warrior, or refusing to fight because he would be killing his own relatives. Whenever questions of dharma arise, everything grinds to a halt so that it can be discussed.

You'd think these detailed side discussions would be tedious or boring, but they're quite interesting. Or at least they are to me, as I have an interest in philosophy and have always been curious how people decide what is good or what is bad, and how they arrive at such conclusions. Ethics fascinates me. The epic doesn't actually settle on any solid answers. It isn't going to spoon-feed you, and it often leaves these questions unresolved, even as characters in the story are questioning the how and the why.

I'll start volume four after we get home. I don't plan on lugging it along on this trip.