Nov 2nd 2025
Hari Om Parents & Kids,
We started our class by chanting the starting prayers.
We had an eventful class where we continued examining the stories from Mahabharata.
We went through a small anecdote to examine the difference between sympathy and empathy. We then looked at the stories from an empathy lens while seeing if the main characters were being dharmic, what was their motivation and what lessons could we infer from the same.
We looked at the birth of Karna and how his mother kept the secret of his birth and examined if it helped her. We examined how we need Shraddha in life be it to the Guru or be it to the Doctor.
We then talked about the birth of the Pandavas and their return to Hastinapur.
We looked at the marriage of Queen Gandhari and the impact of her decision to blindfold herself.
Arjuna then inspired all of us on how he saw only the eye of the bird and how this relates to multitasking and how studies have now shown the benefits of single tasking. May we all be Arjunas in our fields of pursuit.
We then proceeded to the story of how the Kauravas tried to get rid of Bheema by poisoning him and later the Pandavas at the palace of lac.
The story of Pandavas then proceeded from Draupadi Swayamvara that Arjuna won , to how she became the wife of all the Pandavas. Even in ancient India society was progressive and allowed its daughters to choose their husbands. We even saw its backstory on why Draupadi had 5 husbands.
The story then proceeded to their becoming the rulers of Indraprastha and how jealousy caused Kauravas to cheat in a game of dice which then led to the Draupadi's disrobing and insult in the Hastinapur court. And the subsequent game that caused the Pandavas to be exiled for 13 years with last year to be carried out incognito. With a penalty clause if they were found out where they would have to repeat the exile.
The kids told a few stories that they were aware of the exile period, namely Durvasa's visit to the Pandavas' place and the Bheema- Hanuman meet.
The 13th year brought its own share of adventure with the class examining incidents at Virat's kingdom leading to Keechak's death and the defeat of Kaurava army at the hands of Brihanalla (Arjuna). We even visited Krishna's visit as the peace envoy (Shanti Dhoot) and how Duryodhana refused to give even a needle's worth of land thus setting the stage for the war between the Pandavas and the Kauravas.
The kids then chanted BG Chapter 15: Verses 11 & 12 followed by our closing prayers.
There will be no class next Sunday. Enjoy the break
