Dushasana

Dushasana is the adversary whom Bhima pursues and kills in the Kathakali performance watched by Estha and Rahel. In the play’s revenge plot, his earlier attempt to publicly disrobe Draupadi leads her to vow that she will not tie up her hair until it has been washed in his blood; Bhima, in turn, vows to avenge her honor. The performance’s enacted killing gives the twins a spectacle that is at once part of an epic story and an unsettling echo of violence outside it.

Role in the Epic Performance

The performance moves from Karna’s oath to the death of Duryodhana and Dushasana. Dushasana is defined by his assault on Draupadi’s dignity after the Kauravas win her in a game of dice. The narration notes the unequal terms of her anger: she is described as angry with the men who won her, but not with those who staked her. Her vow makes Dushasana the target of a promised retribution, while Bhima’s pledge turns that promise into the performance’s central confrontation.

The Battle and Its Staging

Bhima corners Dushasana on a battlefield strewn with corpses. Their contest begins as an hour of fencing, insults, and mutual accounting of wrongs. When the brass lamp begins to fail, the performers briefly call a truce: Bhima pours oil while Dushasana cleans the charred wick. They then resume the fight, carrying it out of the kuthambalam and around the temple compound with papier-mâché maces. Their chase passes a sleeping elephant and littered ground; Dushasana shifts between bravado and fear as Bhima toys with him. The scene’s theatrical costume and movement make the violence visibly performative, but its grotesque excess prevents it from feeling safely contained by the stage.

Death and Fulfillment of the Vow

At dawn, Estha and Rahel watch Bhima fulfill his vow. He clubs Dushasana down and continues striking until the dying man is still; the performance then shows Bhima tearing open the body and drinking its blood before setting out to bathe Draupadi’s hair in it. Dushasana’s death therefore completes the revenge promised by the epic plot. Yet the staging does not settle into triumph: Bhima retains an aura of rage even after the killing, suggesting that vengeance has fulfilled a vow without extinguishing the violence that drove it.

The Twins’ Witness and the Scene’s Meaning

For Estha and Rahel, the episode is more than an embedded tale. They recognize in Bhima’s frenzy an echo of another morning and another kind of violence they have already seen, though the two events differ in their circumstances. The contrast makes the Kathakali scene both a parallel and a frame through which the twins’ experience can be apprehended: staged violence appears alongside the violence of human history rather than standing apart from it. Their stillness and separation across the breadth of the performance space place them inside a story that is and is not theirs. The narration ultimately presents what they witnessed as a demonstration of the human pursuit of ascendancy, structure, order, and monopoly, with history appearing in the guise of divine purpose.