Chitragupt ki adalat

“They live in a country, while we live in a civilization”
– Parnab Mukherjee

The students of The Bhawanipur Education Society College resonated with this thought which was put forth to them in the event, ‘Chitragupt ki Adalat’, that took place on June 12th, 2024 at the Concept Hall of the college campus from 12:30 P.M. onwards. The event was an intense yet interactive discussion to commemorate the immortal journey of the 17 prominent characters in the Indian epic, Mahabharata. These characters were namely Yudhishtir, Bhim, Arjun, Draupadi, Amba, Kunti, Pandu, Abhimanyu, Bhishma, Drona, Ashwatthama, Kama, Shakuni, Duryodhana, Dushyasan, Gandhari and a wild card entry of Aravan. The 50-strong audience present in the venue, comprised students as well as faculty members who witnessed individual participants portraying each character and justifying the deeds that the characters committed throughout the epic within a time frame of 2 and a half minutes with a spare half-minute.

As the lights illuminated the hall, participants found themselves seated in a semi-circle arrangement facing the podium, where each participant would be asked to come up and speak. The goal was to represent each character and make an attempt to justify their actions in the epic with dignity and respect since each character was flawed and had their share of shortcomings. To commence the event, the Rector and Dean of Student Affairs, Prof. Dilip Shah took to the floor and shared their vision for this event which provided a perspective to the participants as well as the audience. Before taking a seat, Prof. Shah took the opportunity to felicitate Mr. Parnab Mukherjee, who agreed to judge the participants and act as the “Devil’s Advocate”. Before the speakers went to the podium, Prof. Vasundhara Mishra presented Ramdhari Singh Dinkar’s most celebrated poem “Krishna Ki Chetavani” from one of his famous books ‘Rashmirathi’ which filled everyone’s hearts with fervor.

The first speaker in line was Ruchika Agarwal justifying the character Pandu followed by every others. Every character would start by introducing themselves and providing an answer to the question put forth by the judge in their speech, followed by discussions that stem from cross-examination by other characters as well as the audience. Various questions were answered subjectively since this epic can be perceived as a collection of metaphors rather than just facts. The motive of the questions was to provide a true glimpse of the characters’ nature. For example, Bhishma, one of the sharpest characters of the epic, was reduced to a petty kidnapper because he was conscious of his failure to uphold dharma during the disrobing of Draupadi; and Shakuni being the proprietor of the fire that inspired the war was questioned about why he never attempted to redeem himself and if evil was the new normal for him. The last guest speaker for the event, Mr Gautam Bajoria, justified the lesser-known yet important character Aravan and why he chose death over the opportunity to be a warrior.

Taking a quick moment to provide the final judgment, Mr Parnab Mukherjee announced the event winners, conveyed his thoughts, and gave the students much-needed feedback. The 1st runner-ups of Chitragupt ki Adalat were Vedant Gupta as Yuddhishtir and Khyati S. Bansal as Draupadi. The 2nd runner-up were Shreyansh Kumar as Karna and Priyanshu Sharma portraying Duryodhan. Ironically, the character of Dushyasan portrayed by student Jatin Mundhra may have lost the Kurukshetra war but became the winner of this event.

BESC looks forward to hosting many more events such as this with heavy participation from history and mythology student enthusiasts.

Reporter – Aniket Dasgupta and Jiya Tanna
Photographer – Agrag Ghosh