Reading Notes: The Five Tall Sons of Pandu (A)

For my reading this week on another take of the Mahabharata I chose to read The Five Tall Sons of Pandu because it was a version without superpowers and the gods. That intrigued me because the PDE version I read largely incorporated multiple gods and magical powers/items.

It shocked me that in this version Draupadi was just the wife of Yudhishthira. I could do a story where Draupadi is only the wife for Arjuna or Bhima (since he was her most fierce protector)

                                                   

(Draupadi's swayarmvara)

I could do a story where Shishupala loves his cousin Krishna instead of hating him. No way he’d die then.

If Draupadi was just the wife of one of the brothers (not including Yudhishthira) I wonder what she would do during the gambling match when Yudhishthira gambles away his siblings?

I could do a story where Yudhishthira and the brothers get exiled for some other reason that the gambling match, maybe he breaks a really important law or something?

I wonder why the gandharvas are in this version? I thought they spiritual/magical beings like the gods?

It’d be a nice twist on the story if when the Pandavas save Duryodhana in the forest from the gandharvas he uses that to make one of them think that he has changed. Then after a while he reveals that he hasn’t changed and kills that Pandavas brother.

It’d be so cool to write a story from the perspective of one of the Pandavas while they were living in exile in those “ordinary” occupations!

Bibliography-  Reading Guide: Wilson. The Five Tall Sons of Pandu.