Draupadi Writeup

Draupadi is the proud and angry heroine of the epic Mahabharata, the wife of pandavas and the queen of Indraprastha. In a highly male dominated society of that time, when women were frequently denied the right of making their own choices, Draupadi emerged as a woman of greater inner strength who was ready to stand up for her values. Some of the characteristics of Draupadi highlighted in the Yuganta are: 

Confidence and Pride: Though Dhritarashtra grants her three boons, Draupadi asks for only two of them. She is very confident that if her husbands are set free with their weapons, she will need nothing more.

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Earthy and Jealous: Unlike Sita, her counterpart in Ramayan, Draupadi is not portrayed as ideal character. She comes off as natural character with her own flaws and prone ill judgments at times.

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Inner strength and Determination: Amidst all her sorrows and hardships, Draupadi played the role of a dutiful loyal wife and remained as the source of unity and solidarity for pandavas.

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Dutiful, Obedient: She is an obedient daughter, wife and daughter-in-law. After the game of dice, she joins pandavas to go to forest, leaving her kids at her parental house. She throws herself at the various responsibilities and obligations of hospitality including serving the numerous visitors mostly sages.

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Revengeful, Audacious: She remains revengeful and ready to seek vendetta on the injustice thrust on her. She keeps on igniting sparks of revenge in the hearts of pandavas till Kauravas are completely destroyed.

Though born as a princess and then the queen of Indraprastha, Draupadi’s life is filled with hardships and misery. Men cause most of the humiliations Draupadi faces in her life: the people who are supposed to protect her stand helpless when she becomes the scapegoat of their actions. We can refer her as “Nathavati anathavat-having husbands, but all through her life time she suffers like a widow. No one asked Draupadi about how she felt when she is asked to marry all five pandavas after her Swayamvar. Though she loved Arjun the most, she becomes a devoted and loyal wife to all pandavas. Draupadi is compassionate and generous on one hand, at the same time she is not ready to compromise on her rights as a Kshatriya woman or as a wife or a daughter-in-law. She keeps on instigating Pandavas with sharp words to take revenge on Kauravas. In the Great War, she suffers untold losses from these revenges. All her sons are murdered by Ashwathama, by the time Pandavas regained the kingship of Indraprastha. At the very end, during their last walk to

mountains Draupadi realizes that it is Bhima who loved her most. Only Bhima is ready to accompany her on her last journey. She commits grave mistakes in many situations such as making fun of Duryodhan whom she should have treated with respect. At the same time, appropriateness of her question to Dharma at the assembly of Kauravas on his rights to stake her is also debatable. One point of view is that any woman in her situation would have acted in the same manner since she was not a position to evaluate the potential options. One can argue that as a Kshatriya woman Droupadi had to fight for her rights rather than plead for mercy. Still questions remains whether the state of women improved over the years. Even in this 21st century, we could see innumerable Draupadi’s around us in the form uncountable women who were harassed and humiliated across the country. A sense of equality has to be reaped in the minds of the people rather than being enforced by law. Draupadi questioned the social order of that day, fought for her rights and suffered the repercussions from her actions. She remains as an enigmatic woman of substance all through Mahabharata.