Those who’ve read their Mahabharatha or watched the B.R. Chopra mega serial will always remember that climactic moment when Yudhishthira loses the wife in a game of dice and a weeping Draupadi is dragged to the gaming hall in the royal palace at Hastinapur where the disrobing of the Pandavas’ wife is divinely pre-empted by Krishna. There was an entirely different twist to the tale last Tuesday on Diwali night in the Kundapura Kedarpur village in the Dhampur tehsil of UP’s Bijnore district when a drunken 28-year-old Ram Singh gambled away first his money, then his ring and finally his watch before staking his wife for a sum of Rs 5,000 and losing her too. When the winner went to Ram Singh’s house to claim the wife, what followed was completely contrary to what Vyasa had scripted.

Instead of letting herself be dragged away, Ram Singh’s wife picked up a burning log of wood and used it to beat up the winner who fled in tears to the nearest police station. The matter didn’t end even when the cops intervened and the loser borrowed Rs 5,000 and paid off the winner in cash instead of kind. When Ram Singh returned home, he was severely beaten up by his wife. The thrashing stopped only when Ram Singh begged for forgiveness and wailed that he would never, ever gamble again in his life!

Draupadi has come a long way since the Mahabharatha! Today’s Draupadi obviously believes that God helps those who help themselves! So much so that today’s Duryodhana has to cower behind the law-enforcing Bhishma to escape retribution. And today’s Yudhishthira has to fall at Draupadi’s feet to be accepted by her. And if Ram Singh reforms, we could even see that traditional proverb being re-adapted to state that “behind every successful man is a woman with a broomstick or a burning log in hand!” And Kundapura Kedarpur village may have already left Kaliyuga behind and moved into a golden age of its own!

~ saludos to the power of the woman.
:dragon: