"My Duryodhan wasn’t POLITICS Vidhur! My Dushasan wasn’t POLITICS Vidhur! So many of Gandhari’s kids weren’t POLITICS Vidhur!! They were my SONS Vidhur, they were my sons."
—Dhritharashtra
"Yes, they were your sons. But they lived as pawns in the political game you chose to play. They were moved forward, and were eliminated and cast aside. Don’t forget that you placed this bet and lost. These games of victory and defeat keep on going. And I am depressed, brother! I am depressed that I, bound by society’s restrictions in such matters, caught between justice and injustice, had to sit and watch this game, powerless to do anything. Powerless to do anything!"
—Vidhur
"WHAT!!! Was this war which killed my hundred sons a GAME to you? Are you this hard hearted? Is your heart an upturned pot that even my tears cannot pierce? Instead of a heart, do you have just your book on ethics? Is this your idea of virtue?"
—Dhritharashtra
"DO NOT speak to me about VIRTUE elder brother! Do not speak to me about virtue. Virtue isn’t some parrot that will repeat whatever you teach it. You cannot keep virtue caged up. Because Virtue exists everywhere in our universe and beyond. Keeping the air pure is virtue. Protecting the trees is virtue. Keeping the water clean is virtue. And opposing you in this war was virtuous. And the Pandavas were virtuous. They have travelled an immensely difficult and long path to get here. So please give them your blessings.."
—Vidhur
"What, so am I the evil one? Is Dhritharashtra an evil person? Whose powerful arms now can’t even lift up the corpses of all my sons?"
—Dhritharashtra
"Had you been virtuous, you wouldn’t be weeping over your sons’ corpses right now. In your moment to render a historical decision, you chose to be just a father instead of a king. This was Hastinapur’s misfortune and yours, that your love for your son and your ambition drove virtue away from your royal court. Dividing the kingdom was NOT virtuous. Yet you did exactly that! Virtue was not driving wedges between people’s harts. But yet you did that. Virtue requires you to break down the barriers erected between people’s hearts! But yet you didn’t do that. Virtue is now a harsh and bitter truth for you. Please submit to it! Because you still haven’t lost everything!"
—Vidhur
"O, speaker of bitter truths! Tell me, what haven’t I lost yet? What with my kingdom lost, and my sons dead! What do I still have?"
—Dhritharashtra
"You still have your soul, elder brother! You still have your inner soul! Your conscience! And the only way to save your soul now, is for you to present yourself before your citizenry and beg forgiveness! Beg them to forgive us all!"
—Vidhur
"Ask Hastinapur for forgiveness! Why should I ask those citizens for forgiveness, who never even came to me to express sorrow over my sons’ deaths?"
—Dhritharashtra
"Why should they come to you? You should express sorrow for them. You may have lost a hundred sons, but they’ve all lost innumerable sons. And even your sons weren’t just your sons either. They were all Hastinapur’s sons too."
—Vidhur
"Will this virtue of yours seize my sons away from me too? Will your virtue not even allow me to mourn them?"
—Dhritharashtra
"Of course it will! Because virtue and righteousness is a river that sustains every person, every field, every plant, every animal. Giving your sons a father’s love was a righteous duty. But you went beyond that! You stoked the flames of arrogance and ambition in Duryodhan and claimed that it was his hereditary destiny. And why wouldn’t he listen to you as his father? You placed flame after flame onto your sons’ arms that they all got burned. Your ambition dragged all your sons to the battlefield at Kurukshetra. And this is why history will hold you responsible for this great tragedy. You, elder brother, are an artifact of a past that stalled Hastinapur’s future, by erecting a wall of your son’s corpses."
—Vidhur
