Episode 44 - Karna cuts a deal

Episode 44 - We finish off the Book of the Forest with a couple of the more famous vignettes from the epic.  The first is the classic tale in which Karna is forewarned that Indra will come to beg from him his magical armor & earrings, but Karna refuses to prevent it.  He lives up to his claim of complete generosity and literally flays the armor off of his body and hands it all over to Indra. Since transactions with Gods usually go both ways, Karna for his part demanded the "Never-failing Spear", which he figured would be good enough to take out his nemesis Arjun.  This spear will get used, but the outcome will be quite unexpected. The second story is probably equally famous-- Yuddistira is tested by his father, who is disguised as a yaksha pretending to be a duck.  Yuddistira passes the test with flying colors, and is granted in return the assurance that he and his brothers would not be discovered during the year in hiding. Next episode, we'll get started on Book 4, the Book of Virata.