Panchali

Having tried my hand at writing little bit about Ramayana, it follows the natural order of things that I record somethngs about the other great epic Mahabharatha.
I always have a preferance for Mahabharatha for its high story value with so many twists and turns.
In eighth standard we had for our lessons a portion of Mahabharatha in kannada the Aranyaparva. I never knew that it had a great influence on me and later when I read different versions of Mahabharatha and heard it being told by my grnadma, I always remembered vividly the Aranyaparva in kannada. ( I am trying to get hold of that book so that I can re read it again)
It is the phase in the life of Pandavas after they lose in the game of dice all their possessions and are forced to go into the forest for their vana vasa.
Here we get the first glimpse of the first feminist I suppose I can call her that. She blasts Yudishtira for using her as a pawn in the game of dice and asks him how he can suppose he owns her. She vows not to tie her hair till she puts the blood of Dushasana as oil to it and lets her hair down. I would have liked her to take action then and there itself forcing her husband(s) to punish the wrong doers and get the blood immediately. But may be the society was complicated and she had to wait.
The tamil poet bharathi has written an awe inspiring poem about panchali sabadam.
I feel the whole of Aranya parva sort of revolves around Draupadi .
Vyasa the great sage comes to the Pandavas and tells Draupadi the stories of Nala Damayanthi, in detail (which is one more favourite mythological story of mine for the innvovative Damayanthi using her wit to find out about her husband Nala) and also Satyavan Savitri, the great lady who dares to argue with Yama the king of death and beats him in the ensuing dialogue and wins back the life of her husband. The story of Rama and Seeta are also narrated. (there by showing us the precedence of ramayana over mahabharatha) These stories are narrated and the sage consoles her saying that she is not the only one who is suffering and there are these ladies who have suffered but come out of it vicotrious.
Now Draupadi learns to bade her time and sorts of settles into a forest life. we see,Aarjuna being tested by Lord Siva appearing as a uncouth tribal and Arjuna is forced to fight with him and after the fight reveals himself as S iva and gives him the pasupathaastra.
Arjuna goes to help Indra in some wars to deva loka and comes back with lot of weapons. so this becomes a sort of a preparation for the future war with the kauravas. Arjuna gets a curse also by Oorvasi which becomes, a blessing in disguise (pun intended) when he can use the curse to become 'brihannala' the 'ali' while hiding in agnatha vasa in Virata's palace.
We see our Panchali in a good mood too when she asks Bheema to go and fetch her the lovely flower 'sougandhika' which gives a nice smell. he goes in search of it and meets Hanuman and without knowing who he was is snubbed for his super ego and brings back the flower. I have been trying to identify the mythological sougandhika puspa.
Again after the vana vasa when all of them decide to go to Virata nagara for their agnata vasa 'incognito'life, we see Draupadi entering the services of Sudarsana the queen . Here I remember my grand mother telling me how she had to control her laughter when uncultured Sudarsana did not know how to use the lovely ornaments and put on, what ever has to be put in ears, in the nose and the hand thing in the head and so on and so forth. the way in which my grand ma used to tell it used to evoke laughter.
Here again Draupadi gets into trouble. the evil brother of Sudarsana, Keechaka troubles her. she takes the help of Bheema. she asks Keechaka to come to a spot, but there Bheema is waiting for him covering himself with a ladies garb and kills Keechaka.
Panchali is instrumental in sending Bruhanala as the charioteer for the cowaard and boastful prince Uttara kumara as kauravas having guessed that pandavas are hiding here comes to attack the Virata nagara.
By then the stipulated 12 months are over and the pandavas are free once again to come to the open, and the story moves on.
It is entirely a different point altogether, that many say that Panchali is the root casue of the whole Mahabharatha yuddha as she laughed at Duryodhana when he comes to visit the palace built by maya and falls down as he can not distinguish between water and the shining floor.

But she sure had the boldness to say and do what she wanted and took a great revenge on those who caused her great injustice.