"You have gone beyond the limits of your authority, O King! For this I will curse you as a punishment."
—Rishi Kindam
In this episode of Mahabharata, Pandu kills Rishi Kindam by accident while hunting a tiger, gets cursed, abdicates the throne, and goes to the forest to do penance. Because of the former, Kunti and Madri use their boons to give birth to the Pandavas. Dhritharashtra becomes king in Pandu's place, and conceives Duryodhan and the Kauravas with Gandhari.
Tropes found in the episode are:
- Call-Back: Kunti mentions Sita accompanying Rama on his fourteen year exile as justification for her and Madri accompanying Pandu to the forest.
- Chekhov's Skill: Kunti uses her boon to give birth to Yudhistir, Bhim and Arjun. Madri uses the same spell to spawn Nakul and Sahadev.
- Divine Parentage: Yudhistir is born from Yama, the God of Death, Bhim is born from Vayu the Wind God, Arjun is born from Indra, the King of the Gods and God of Thunder and Lightning, while Nakul and Sahadev are born from the Ashwini twins.
- Dying Curse: Kindam curses Pandu to die the moment he initiates intercourse with a woman.
- The Grand Hunt: When a tiger strays a little too close to Pandu’s vacation home, Madri goads Pandu into hunting it.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Pandu’s arrow impales Rishi Kindam, his wife and a nearby tree.
- Improbable Aiming Skills: Deconstructed. Pandu aims his arrow by the sound of the tiger’s roar. This makes him unable to see that tiger morph back into Rishi Kindam, thereby killing him.
- Make an Example of Them: Pandu abdicates the throne and sentences himself to do penance as an example that the law is above any king.
- Massive Numbered Siblings: There are five Pandavas. Gandhari pushes this up to eleven by giving birth to 101 kids - the hundred Kauravas and Dushala.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Pandu is overwhelmed with guilt at having killed Rishi Kindam.
- Our Werebeasts Are Different: Rishi Kindam and his wife are weretigers who take an animal form when they want to have sex.
- You Shall Not Pass!: Pandu is prevented from entering heaven as a sanyasi because he is neither enlightened, nor a true sanyasi (his penance was due to a punishment, not purely by choice) and he has no heirs yet.
