The most current version of this story is on my website! Check it out!
Before getting into the story, the reason why everything is about to go down should be known. For starters, the Pandavas (AKA the sons of King Pandu, are super successful and cool. There was this other guy named Duryodhana who was the first of the many sons of King Dhritarashtra, who just so happened to be King Pandu’s brother. This meant that Duryodhana was a prince and also a cousin of the Panadavas. He was not such a big fan of the Pandavas, mainly because they were more successful and more powerful than him. Basically, he let his jealousy build for a really long time. Finally, he decided he needed to get rid of the Pandavas if he ever wanted to be in power.
For starters, we are
going to start calling Prince Duryodhana by “Dury” because it is easier and
makes him sound less scary. Though Dury
is very angry and envious, he is also very weak and cowardly. He asked this wicked guard named Purochana
for some advice. He devised an elaborate
plan of building a lac palace filled with nothing but oil-soaked wood
furniture. They would then invite the
Pandavas over and basically torch the place.
Though this would definitely get rid of the brother, Dury did not think
he would be able to live with the guilt of killing them. After all, they were pretty cool and nice guys. So, it seemed that Dury had to come up with
his own plan.
Dury recalled this
really weird witch named Daay he had met a festival once. Though he did not necessarily want to deal
with her because she was so strange, he thought that she could definitely
help. She lived in a small little hut
deep within a forest. Dury grabbed
Purochana and they made their way into the forest.
They finally made it
to the hut and knocked on the door. Of
course, it just crept open. Dury called
out, “Daay? Daay are you here?” There
was no answer so they made their way to the back of the house. The saw Daay sitting with her back to the
door, mixing potions. Dury touched her
shoulder and she screamed! She about threw her entire cauldron at him! She calmed down when she saw it was just the
prince. Dury explained his situation and
Daay grimaced. She had an idea. She suggested that Dury transform the
brothers into animals, any animal he would like. She said he could invite them over for dinner
and mix the potion into their wine. Dury
liked this plan for a couple reasons. First,
Dury had always wanted a pet dog.
Second, this couldn’t be that cruel because could a dog’s life be so
bad? Dury was convinced and the plan was
in motion.
Dury invited all the
Pandavas over for supper, including Queen Kunti. The Pandavas thought this was out of nowhere
but agreed because Dury said something about “family bonding.” Before they left, Vidura, (half-brother of
Pandu and Dhritarashtra) warned them to be careful because he knew of Dury’s
jealousy. The brothers thanked him and
made their way over to the palace. They
arrived to a beautiful supper and they all sat around a grand table. Dury seemed to be acting weird but the
Pandavas didn’t think much of it because they thought he was weird anyway. The servers then brought out the wine. Bhima, one of the Pandavas, thought it was
strange that the glasses had already been poured and their wine looked a little
different from Dury’s. Knowing he was
immune to all poison and potions, he said, “watch this” and began chugging all
the wine around the table. He got to the
last glass and decided he should test if there really was something wrong with
the wine. He went to Dury and forced him
to drink it. Within seconds, Dury transformed
into a small, fluffy, white dog. Bhima’s
suspicions were correct.
The Pandavas went on
being the powerful and successful brothers they had always been. Though he had tried to go against them, they
decided to let Dury live. But, they let
him live as a dog. Dury had been right,
being a dog really was not that bad.
Especially being a royal dog that lives in a palace.
Dury as a dog! (Max Pixel)
Author's Note:
This story was based off "House of Fire" by the PDE version of Mahabharata. In the original, Prince Duryodhana planned to deal with his jealousy of the Pandavas by burning them in lac palace with oil-soaked furniture. The brother learned of his plan and were able to build a tunnel to escape. The palace was set on fire, but beggars had been in the palace that night. They died and everyone thought it was the Pandavas. I wanted to produce a lighter version in which the Pandavas seemed really cool and Duryodhana seemed really weak. I still wanted to keep he same general outline, but just change up the way he deals with his jealousy.
Bibliography:
House of Fire from PDE Mahabharata by Laura Gibbs. Link.
