A Study on Mahabharat's Vile Villain Shakuni in Mallar Chatterjee's Shakuni & the Dice of Doom

Abstract

Indian epics are an important element of India's rich cultural past. These epics have impacted Indian society's social and religious ideas, offering ethical advice to people and impacting their everyday lives. The Mahabharat and the Ramayana are two of Indian literature's most well-known epics. The representation of villains who function as adversaries to the heroes or protagonists is an important feature in these two Indian epics. These villains frequently exemplify the dark and evil parts of human nature. However, the villains also play a significant part in the text by evaluating and challenging the protagonist’s righteousness. Villains demonstrate the value of characteristics such as bravery, kindness, and selflessness by their acts. In the line of underappreciated villains in Indian Epic, there is a magnificent legend named Shakuni in the Hindu epic Mahabharat. The Mahabharat tells a story of two sides fighting to rule a kingdom named Hastinapur. In the Mahabharat, the character of Shakuni is not properly explained by the author Maharishi Veda Vyasa. The author does not throw much light on Shakuni’s original personality or nature. Using Mallar Chatterjee’s retelling epics book 2 named Shakuni & the Dice of Doom the paper examines the real character of Shakuni and his reasons for choosing evil path. The author has written a new Mahabharat in the perspective of Shakuni. The thesis focuses on finding Shakuni’s original character, skills, love, hate, personality, devotion and relationship.