Vidura Warning at Duryodhanas Birth

Dadi: "Guddu, imagine a newborn baby - tiny, helpless, innocent. Now imagine that the moment he opened his mouth to cry, jackals howled, vultures circled, and fires erupted across the kingdom."

Guddu: "That sounds like a horror movie, Dadi!"

Dadi: "It was a horror that came true. When Duryodhana was born, he didn't cry like normal babies. He brayed like a donkey. And all the creatures of ill omen - jackals, crows, vultures - answered his cry with their own terrible sounds."

Guddu: "What did that mean?"

Dadi: "Even nature was warning the kingdom. Violent winds began to blow. Fires broke out in different directions. King Dhritarashtra, though blind, could hear the chaos. He was terrified."

Guddu: "What did he do?"

Dadi: "He called an emergency meeting with the wisest people in the kingdom - Bhishma, the brahmanas, and especially Vidura. He asked them: "Should this child become king? Or does Yudhishthira, being the eldest among all my nephews, have the rightful claim?""

Guddu: "At least he asked for advice!"

Dadi: "Yes, and the advice was shocking. Vidura and the brahmanas gave a terrible prophecy: "O king, these frightful omens mean this child will destroy your entire race. Your family's survival depends on abandoning him. You still have ninety-nine other sons. If you want your lineage to continue, give up this one child.""

Guddu: "They wanted him to abandon his baby?"

Dadi: "They explained a harsh truth from dharma: sometimes one person must be sacrificed for a family's survival, a family for a village, a village for a country, and even a country for the soul's salvation."

Guddu: "That's so hard! Could any parent do that?"

Dadi: "Dhritarashtra couldn't. His love for his firstborn was too strong. Despite every warning, every sign, every prophecy, he held his crying baby and refused to let go."

Guddu: "I understand why. How can a father give up his own child?"

Dadi: "Your heart is kind, Guddu. But this was not ordinary love - it was attachment blind to consequences. Every time Vidura tried to guide the king in the following years, Dhritarashtra would ignore him because he couldn't bear to see his son's faults."

Guddu: "Did Vidura ever remind him of this day?"

Dadi: "Many times! Years later, as war approached, Vidura said: "O king, I told you on the day of his birth - abandon this one son and save your hundred. Keep him, and destruction will take all of them.""

Guddu: "And the king remembered?"

Dadi: "He remembered everything. After the war, when all hundred sons lay dead on the battlefield, Dhritarashtra wept: "I did not listen to the wise words of Vidura who sought our welfare. Because of my blindness - not of eyes but of judgment - I now suffer.""

Guddu: "So the prophecy came completely true?"

Dadi: "Every word. The Kurukshetra War killed not just the hundred Kauravas but millions of soldiers, kings, and princes. An entire generation was wiped out, exactly as the omens predicted."

Guddu: "Dadi, was Duryodhana evil from birth? That doesn't seem fair."

Dadi: "A profound question, beta. Perhaps the omens showed his potential for destruction, not his guaranteed fate. If Dhritarashtra had raised him with discipline, corrected his jealousy early, refused to spoil him - maybe the outcome would have been different."

Guddu: "So the warning was also a chance to change things?"

Dadi: "Exactly! Prophecies in our stories are often warnings, not sentences. They show what will happen if nothing changes. Dhritarashtra's real failure wasn't loving his son - it was refusing to shape that son into a better person."

Guddu: "So ignoring wise advice because you don't want to hear it..."

Dadi: "...is how small problems become catastrophes. The king had twenty, thirty, forty years to change course. Every single day was a chance to listen to Vidura. He chose comfort over truth every single time."

Guddu: "That's really sad, Dadi."

Dadi: "It is, beta. But it teaches us to listen when life sends warnings - through wise friends, through consequences of our actions, through those little voices inside us. The signs are always there. The question is whether we have the courage to see them."