Karna

 The great epic, the Mahabharata, is literally a treasure trove as far as the variety of human personalities goes. Unlike the Ramayana, moreover,  the Mahabharata is not peopled with ideal and/or not idealistic persons. The characters in this epic are complex, and greyish in shade. Their motives are convoluted, intricate and perplexing. 

Karna would be the best example of such unique characterisation in this epic. Of the multiple facets of/to his personality, let us in this small, little blog, concentrate on his friendship.  

Karna is in a way the only friend Duryodhana has. If Duryodhana is the antagonist of the epic, Karna would be the contrast to the protagonist, let us say, Arjuna, or all the Pandavas, if you so wish.  Karna is not a stock character, unlike Dushyashana, for example. He is a unique, rounded character. Anyways, right now, i do not want to discuss his characterisation.

In this blog, i would like to discuss his personality and his role as a friend. If we compare him with Sudama, for instance, he appears to be cowed down by his comparatively mightier, richer, more well-known friend.

In fact, i would like to go a step ahead so as to maintain that he is never a friend because he never considers himself an equal to his richer, more powerful friend. Friendship can continue if both the parties concerned consider each other equal. In other words, he appears to be more a dependent than a friend.  

As a dependent, he is more a boot-licker. He hardly advises and/or resists Duryodhana who often goes wrong. His servility is such that he becomes the alter ego of his evil friend. I suppose that is what ruins his fundamentally good personality. 

A good friend would never support one in bad deeds. In fact, a good friend would point out your faults, lacunae so that you can work on these to improve, to work on one's personality. Karna fails this acid test.

Yet another aspect of a good friendship is one's  friendship with one's own self. Till the end, and especially after the Kunti episode, we do not feel that he could finally find his own real self. So he is always defined through his relationships.

As he is not a good friend with his own self, neither is he a true friend with anyone else. Hence his story is a tragic story of wasted potential. In brief, even as a friend, the character teaches the reader a lot about friendship flourishing under self respect!

Pratima@ A friend in need not be the best friend. A friend who shows us the mirror, who acquaints us with ourselves is the truest and the best friend.