Karma is Always
I knew that this was Pandu’s destiny. He had been cursed. There must be a way to repay one evil for another. I too must reconcile with my failure. It is time, here and now. If I wait I will only have evil Karma bestowed upon me in this life. Maybe by choosing to end my life now, I will be free to return to love with good Karma in my reincarnation. There is no way this will not go unpunished. I am not innocent. I knew that this would kill my love, and yet I let him fall. It should have been for me to convince him. Reminding him of the curse was not enough. I allowed myself to be attractive and knew that my looks and actions were not sending the same message as my words. I too fell into the longing of desire. Men have little strength and courage when it comes to the actions and looks of women. I know what I must do. If I stay here, alive, and pretend as if I am innocent, I will only be doing a disservice to myself, my future self, and my sons. It will be a curse they too may have to face. I will not allow my failure to be the failure my sons face as well. I know that I must join my love. I trust Kunthi with the responsibility of rearing my boys. Maybe by this act the gods will be gracious and bring us together again in our next life. I am not sad, I am resolved. This is what I must do. There is no other way. To stay and live without him, knowing that I will one day repay this downfall, would be torture. It is up to me to declare victory over this curse. I will pray and hope that I can force Karma to repay me now and maybe one day my love and I will be free together.

Analysis:
The idea of choosing one’s Karma came to me when I was reading this section.  I decided to do a little research after writing this essay for my Story Retelling.  In my research I sought to find if you can actually “choose” Karma.  Would it be possible for Madri to choose to kill herself in the hopes of fulfilling her Karma?  I found both sides of the argument present everywhere I looked.  I have chosen to present to you here the arguments in support of the essay I wrote from Madri’s point of view.

 One argument found on "The Puzzle"  suggested that “Karma is the experience of what you have created.”  By this definition, each of us is telling the universe how to respond to us by our choices.  This definition suggests to me that when Madri choose death, she very well may have been choosing to give her life to repay the life of the one she just took.  I am of course suggesting that Madri played a large part in Pandu’s downfall.  The Mahabharata leaves out many details, only explaining that she reminded him of the curse.  I am unaware how much of a fight she put up, but from this account it does not seem like very much.  She feels that she could have done more to save his life than just giving him a simple reminder.  If this is true, she might have believed that she aided in taking his life.  Because of this I am suggesting that perhaps she gave her own life in order to balance back out her Karma in the future life to come.  From my retelling, this would be better then living a life with bad Karma, and it could help them be reunited in future lives.  This idea is supported in another website called "Karma and Forgiveness" which explains that “We can choose to expiate negative Karma by making positive causes for ourselves”. 

The most solid argument I found came from the "Indian Glossary".  It was from this site that I understood that “No god or divinity controls your actions or the consequences of your actions.”  It is explained that Karma one builds up from the past is what determines your present actions.  These two sentences may seem to contradict each other; however, with both being true, Madri was free to choose the manor in which she performs her Karma.  In this way she may have been choosing to perform these actions as a sense of “duty rather than a sense of profit.”

Bibliography:

Buck, William. Ramayana. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976.

“Karma” Indian Glossary (1996, Updated 7-14-1999) Richard Hooker
Available online: http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/GLOSSARY/KARMA.HTM

“Karma” The Puzzle (2003) John Davies
Available online: http://www.members.optusnet.com.au/~acceptance/YourPurposeWeb/Karma.htm

"Karma and Forgiveness” On Healing Emotional Pain (2004) Peggy Jentoft
Available online: http://www.solarraven.com/karma.html

Image Information:

Death in Hinduism, A Cremation on a Funeral Pyre
Website: Death
Weblink: http://re-xs.ucsm.ac.uk/re/passage/death.htm#Death

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