Story: Gamblers Anonymous

“Welcome to Gamblers Anonymous!” the bright, cheery lady chirped.  “Let’s all go around the room and say our first names and why we’re here, shall we?  I’ll start!  I’m Anna and I lost my house playing poker!”

“I’m James and I’m here because the court ordered me to be after I started a prison fight betting ring.”

“I’m David and I started selling drugs to feed my addiction.”

“I’m Bri and I lost my entire family and turned to alcoholism after I gambled away my retirement fund and children’s college fund.”

“I’m Yudhishthira and I lost my wealth, my kingdom, my servants, my brothers, myself, and worst of all, my wife, on a dice game,” he sighed, with his face in his hands.

Everybody in the room turned and stared at him, aghast.

“Damn, dude, you had a kingdom?” James muttered.

“You had a wife?” David said.

“Yes,” he cried, “and I lost them all because of my stupidity.”

“Oh, wow, that sucks,” Anna said brightly.  “Why don’t you elaborate a little more on what exactly happened?”

“Well, my cousin invited me to a dice game.  I knew he had something up his sleeve because he never wants to play dice, but I had no choice but to accept.  So I—“

“Wait, hold up, you had to accept?” asked Bri.

“Yes, or it would have been a stain on my honor.  A Kshatriya never backs down from a challenge.”  The group looked even more confused than before, but he ignored them and continued.  “I headed over to his palace, but when I arrived he refused to play me.  Instead, he had his uncle Sakuni play for him.  Sakuni is wily and clever at dice games, and soon he was winning everything from me.  I should have stopped before it got too much, but I couldn’t!  A frenzy had come over me, and I had to keep playing.  I kept raising and raising the stakes until soon I stood before him a pauper, and still I could not stop playing.  Every time I rolled I thought this would be the time I won it all back.  But again and again he won until even my family had been won by him, as if they were mere slaves!  Soon the only thing that was left to me was my beautiful wife until even she had been won.  She would have been forced to disrobe too, but thankfully the Lord Krishna prevented that from happening.  Alas, I still had nothing, and that is why I sit before you now.  I hope to find solace here and recover from my ruinous habits.”

A profound silence greeted his statements.  None of them knew what to say, but all knew how he had felt while playing the game.

“Did you say you were playing against a man named Sakuni?” a deep voice suddenly growled from the back of the room.

Yudhishthira turned to see who it was and was greeted by a towering hulk of a man gripping a golden mace.  Next to him stood a slim, tall man absentmindedly playing with the strings of a bow almost as tall as he was, the opposite of the other in every way, and yet they seemed exceedingly similar somehow.

“Who are you?  How do you know Sakuni?”

“I am Bhima and my brother is Arjuna.  He cheated us out of everything we have too, just like you.  Once my brother and I were famous warriors, known throughout the land.  Then, Sakuni staked 13 years of exile on a dice game with us, and we lost.  We have been in hiding ever since, waiting for the day when we can strike back against him and take back what we lost.”

“You say you know his nephew, do you not?” Arjuna said thoughtfully.  “Perhaps we can use that to our advantage.”

“B-But you do not understand.  He is protected by that very same nephew and his friends.  There is no way we could reach him.”

The two brothers looked at each other grimly and stroked their weapons.

“Oh, we know a way,” Bhima smiled.

“What do you say, Yudhishthira?” Arjuna asked.  “Are you in?”

He hesitated.

“I—“

“Oh, come on, man, just go!  Get back your wife and kingdom!”  James threw open the door and gestured outside.  “You can’t just waste the chance to make everything right!”

He took a deep breath and nodded at Arjuna.  “I’m in.  Let’s go.”  As they walked out the door, the other gamblers cheered and made for the door as well, leaving behind a pleading Anna muttering something about court-mandated rehab.

Hand holding playing cards.  Web Source.

Author's Note:  This is based on the story of Yudhishthira's gambling with the Kauravas leading him into exile.  I lifted him into a more modern setting but kept much of the details although in this one Arjuna and Bhima are not his siblings and he gambled away other brothers.  I put Yudhishthira into Gamblers Anonymous since it seemed like he had a serious problem.

Bibliography:  R.K. Narayan.  Mahabharata.  Reading Guide.