Frin-Ed

"Duryodhana's tears streamed down his cheeks onto Karna's fist which had opened up, his palm facing downwards. The tears fell on Karna's palm and went into the ground. Even in his final moments, he seemed to be giving."

This was the final moment of Karna described by the author Ranjit Desai.

Written by Padma Shri Ranjit Desai in Marathi, and translated by Vivek Pande to English, this book is filled with emotional conversations. First of all, this book doesn't describe all the events that happened in Karna's life. It mostly focuses on the major ones. But what this actually describes is the emotional turmoil Karna had to go through, throughout his journey of life. Born to Kunti, being the son of the Sun God himself, he had to grow up in a lower class family, and had to face all kinds of insults, because he tried to become a warrior, something that only Kshatriyas did back then. And don't be mistaken! He wasn't just a warrior. He was the greatest of them all, so, naturally most of those insults came out of jealousy. But he had to go through all of it!

This book tries to touch the essence of Karna's life, ie his emotions. It is filled with dialogues between people, sometimes so deep that I felt like I am too young to understand those! Starting from Karna's first meet with Krishna till his death in front of his friend Duryodhana, you'll witness Karna constantly questioning if life has been fair to him, because he had to bear everything without any mistake of his own. Slowly, as the Mahabharata war unfolded, he lost everything, but never lost his composure. "Lost" is a wrong word here. I'd rather say he GAVE AWAY whatever he had. Whoever came, whatever they asked, he fulfilled everyone's wishes. He lived a life so great that even Krishna himself used to respect him!

This book has described the perspective of Karna very well, his decision to stay with Duryodhana, insulting Draupadi and regretting later, being against Pandavas and ending up loving them in the end, and accepting everything even when life had been unfair in every bit! There were times when you'll see Karna's perspectives in such a way that you'll feel the Pandava's might have been in the wrong side!

If you are facing too many emotional confusions in life, then you're definitely gonna find this book relatable. There have been times in the book that gripped me such that I was getting late for office, still I wanted to read just one more page. But there has been times when I had to read even when I didn't want to. I have mixed reactions related to this book. But overall, I enjoyed reading it. I solely got the book because I am a fan of Karna myself, especially after coming across Rashmirathi by Dinkar. I wanted to know more about Karna's life, and eventually came across this book. And I don't regret it at all!