I have come to the part of the story which I

  have been dreading. The part of the story

  everyone knows about. The part that has

  been written, over and over again. I do not

  want to write about it.

  Yes, the war was fought. I orchestrated it. I

  did not want war, yet the alternative was out

  of the question, so I enabled the eighteen-day

  battle of the kings.

  The war that took place between the

  Pandavas on one side and the Kaurava clan

  on the other involved almost every empire to

  the east of Indus. They fought for the throne

  of Hastinapur. A kingdom on the banks of

  the river Ganga, one of the oldest, boasting

  such an illustrious lineage of Kings that the

  lands east of the Indus would derive its name

  from one. Bharat. A kingdom that was now

  staring into the eyes of civil war. Cousins

  were fighting for the crown. This is a story

  so well known that I do not want to recount it

  one more time.

  One billion, six hundred and sixty-six

  million, and twenty thousand men would be

  slain in the course of the Great Battle of

  Kurukshetra. The death of those men haunts

  me now, but it did not touch me as I sat as

  charioteer to Arjun. I had sworn not to lift

  my weapons on anyone in the war, but I

  could not forsake Arjun. I had to stand by

  him. He was Krishnaa's husband. Before the

  war, when both the Kauravas and the

  Pandavas had been trying to find allies,

  Duryodhana and Arjun both had come to me

  looking for an alliance. My offer was my

  army to one, myself unarmed to the other.

  Duryodhana had the right of the first choice.

  He chose my army. The man itching to

  defeat a warrior like Arjun did not know that

  troops and soldiers never win wars; however,

  trained they may be, but by strategy, with the

  mind, by clever tricks and the spirit of

  indefeasibility. Duryodhana chose my army.

  Arjun always wanted me. And I had to be

  with him if Krishnaa was to be avenged.

  Arjun fell apart before the battle had begun. I

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  picked him up, set him right. I was his spine

  when he could not stand straight and tall to

  release fatal arrows on those he knew as his

  own. I stood by him and was the voice in his

  head that gave him the courage to find his

  valour, his warrior soul, and defeat the

  strongest army known to the world.

  The people of this land say I gave the world

  The Gita- the greatest treatise on

  transcendental knowledge. As I talked to

  Arjuna that day, at the heart of the

  battlefield, an army on either side, I showed

  him what it is to be a man, to be God. I

  showed him the one universal truth. I showed

  him the essence of the divine and the divine

  itself.

  The truth is I do not recollect what I said. I

  spoke for a long time, using all the loquacity

  and glibness I had at my disposal. I spoke

  from the heart. I spoke my truth. It was not

  something I had rehearsed. I knew that at this

  moment, it was imperative that Arjun should

  raise his bow and deliver, as per a warrior of

  his stature. This was not the time to dwell

  over the why and how of our actions. There

  is a time for indecisiveness, a time for

  mulling over our own deeper motives, a time

  to question the screenplay, the script, but that

  time is not when the curtains have parted,

  and the actor stands in the spotlight while the

  audience waits with bated breath, for the first

  act to begin.

  They call me a God, and I am one if weighed

  on the parameters that define godhood. On

  the battlefield that fateful day I saw Arjun

  pause, blinded by the spotlight, conscious of

  the audience before him. This was war. The

  audience was not meant to see the carnage

  that was to take place. They were

  participants. Arjun needed to run his sword

  through them, aim his arrows at their hearts.

  He could not do it, falling apart,

  remembering embraces, affection, and love.

  To be able to destroy, you must rid your

  heart and mind of every emotion. Arjun must

  not feel while he fought, and I had to ensure

  that. I needed to lock away his humanity for

  the duration of the war, which I did.

  And I did it with my words. I spoke. And my

  words became the most powerful weapon

  that unleashed the most mortiferous attack on

  those who chose the wrong side, the side I

  was not on.

  The first to fall was a young man named

  Uttama, the son of King Virat.

  Only twelve warriors survived the

  Mahabharata. I was one of them, but then I

  was not the one fighting, or