The Unanswerables

To me, the Mahabharata does not answer questions but it only raises the questions - the unanswerables. It is not important to get the answers but to understand the ways of human beings and the humanity. After reading the treatise, perhaps the greatest one ever produced by the humanity, one feels sad. This is the human predicament, which we must try to avoid by applying the best of our agency, but at the end we must learn to live with it. The most tragic case in the epic, to me, is the adharma inbuilt in the dharma of the Bhishma. The good, the bad, and something abominable like gambling one’s wife or the attempt of disrobing a lady were so badly entangled that only an all annihilating war could resolve the mounting crisis. I must repeat, a human being is endowed with a very perceptive consciousness. We must cultivate it and sensibilities so acquired help us to sympathise and empathise. And thus we tend to be good.

(A comment in a facebook debate initiated by Swastik Sharma on what is good and what is bad. - NKJ)