This is the Heath Ledger ” A Knight’s tale ” that I am talking about.
A peasant William (Heath Ledger) disguises as a knight to participate and win tournaments, honour and glory. Like our Karna.
(Of course our Karna turns out to be the son of Surya, which gives him a noble birth, but that does not happen in this movie.)
A noble who is about as good at him at fighting, like our Arjuna अर्जुन, (but rather black hearted unlike this best devotee of Krishna and first recipient of Bhagavad Gita) , finally attacks the fact of his peasant birth, since he cannot win him in battle. This turns the crowd against William.
Prince Edward, like our Duryodhana, knights him and enables him to fight.
(In our own contemporary political hindi movie “Rajneeti”, duryodhana (Manoj Bajpai’s character) helps Ajay Devagan (Karna’s character) only with a view to manipulate mass vote.)
However, Prince Edward knights William the Peasant, out of motives of justice and goodness and gives him the right to fight in tournaments.
Demonstrating to me what is the hallmark of true nobility. He says that William is descended from an ancient royal line. After seeing this movie, I think that Duryodhana, could have crowned Karna as the king of Anga with true respect and sense of justice. It also helped that Karna’s foster father Adhiratha was actually in the line to the throne of Anga as the Srimad Bhagawatham tells us.
(After seeing the present versions of Duryodhana and Dharmaraja in Indian poltics, it is hard to ascribe good motives to Duryodhana, but the fact remains that the original Duryodhana is Respected in Uttaranchal and there are temples to him there.)
There is no doubt that Duryodhana resented the Pandavas, but my grandfather told me that otherwise he was a good king, generous and kind to his people.
B.R. Chopra interprets Duryodhana’s generosity as populist and not genuine. Like that of modern politicians. But people were not so deceitful in the Dwapara Yuga. Dharma still walked on two padas (feet) then!
Perhaps I have a great need to see goodness in people. Perhaps I don’t like watching news and reality shows because they focus on the meanness and misery of people when people are mean to them. Perhaps, just like Price Edward in this movie, Duryodhana was compassionate to Karna’s situation, and was in a position to return to Karna’s family a kingdom previously dominated by Hastinapur. May be he was, as a crown prince, doing justice. He was not a politician, he was after all a king?
I think as the custodians of the story moved from Saraswathi River to Ganga, blacker motives may have been ascribed to Duryodhana than Vyasa’s original depiction of his own grandson.
Authorship and Copyright Notice : All Rights Reserved : Satya Sarada Kandula