If only we had thought for a moment!
In the Mahabharatha, as we all know the war happened because Pandavas didn’t not get their due, not even the five villages. Even as everyone tried to placate Duryodhana, he had said they would not even give away five inches forget five villages.
The war has been declared, and though the war was on from a date it was business as usual and that's when they get the people to fight ot their side. Some people were coaxed to fight on behalf of Pandavas and some for Kauravas owning allegiance to the kingdom and their help during times of distress. As this played out Duryodhana was feeling high, why not he had Bhishma, Drona and Kripa all great men and warriors whose exploits can be written for years together.
This is very evident during the start of the war. As the sides were ready for the start, Duryodhana goes towards Drona and starts a super flow of dialogues. You can read it as both the confidence and may be some subtle fear. Depends on how you look at it.
As an aside this forms the initial part of the Bhagavad Gita where Sanjaya makes a live telecast to Dhridharashtra.
Duryodhana goes on to say the virtues of the warriors and how they cannot be beaten by the opponent. He extols the way Bhishma is such a fine warrior and few sentences later asks the team to save Bhishma.
Bhishma wanted to enthuse Duryodhana or whatever, so much that he blew his conch announcing the start of the war and then the rest of the warriors blew their respective conches, filling the Kurukshetra cosmos.
A terrible mistake had happened here, all the while Pandavas were supposed to call for war, Bhishma makes the call because Duryodhana mistimed his dialogues. May be, it would have been different if not for Duryodhana.
May be even during the worst of crisis we need to hold our own, not get led by the circumstances, someone of Bhishma’s stature who had the power to ward off death as he wished made a mistake.
This is so evident in our day to day endeavours, sometimes we just go with the flow, here Bhishma wanted to enthuse Duryodhana who he thought was getting jittery, but then he called for war. If he had thought for a moment on what he was doing, it would have been different. Who knows.
That thought for a moment, is a great teacher for everyone of us. We lose things in a fit of a moment. This episode has a lot for communication, negotiation and competitor analysis. Will write about it as we go...
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