Ajaya: Roll of the Dice — What If the Villains Were Actually Right?

We all know the Mahabharata. The Pandavas are the heroes—noble, righteous, destined to win. The Kauravas are the villains—jealous, cruel, destined to lose.

That’s the version we’ve been told for thousands of years. The version where good triumphs over evil, where dharma prevails, where the right side wins.

Ajaya: Roll of the Dice by Anand Neelakantan asks a simple but unsettling question: What if we’ve been listening to the wrong side?

What if Duryodhana—the villain of the traditional story—was actually the wronged party? What if the Pandavas—our supposed heroes—were manipulative, opportunistic, and willing to bend every rule to get what they wanted?

What if history wasn’t written by the righteous, but by the winners?

This isn’t a book that gently suggests “maybe things were more complicated.” It goes further. It actively flips the moral script, recasting the Kauravas as principled and the Pandavas as corrupt. It doesn’t just humanize Duryodhana—it paints him as the good guy fighting against a system rigged in favor of people who claim divine backing for their selfishness.

And that’s uncomfortable. Deeply uncomfortable if you grew up with the traditional Mahabharata. Because suddenly, the heroes you’ve always rooted for look like villains. And the villain you’ve always dismissed starts looking like someone who had legitimate grievances.

The Introduction That Changes Everything

The book opens with a clear statement: This is Duryodhana’s story. And you’re going to see the entire epic through his eyes.

That introduction is powerful. It doesn’t ease you in. It doesn’t pretend to be neutral. It says: everything you think you know about this story? Get ready to question it.

From page one, you know this won’t be a balanced retelling where everyone has good and bad qualities and truth lies somewhere in the middle. This is a deliberate counter-narrative. An argument, not just a story.

And that clarity—that boldness—is one of the book’s strengths. Because it signals immediately what you’re signing up for. If you want a nuanced exploration where all characters are equally complex, this isn’t it. If you want to see what the story looks like when the moral poles are reversed, keep reading.

Duryodhana: From Villain to Victim

In the traditional Mahabharata, Duryodhana is jealous, power-hungry, willing to cheat and lie to keep the Pandavas from their inheritance. He’s the obstacle. The antagonist. The reason the war happens.

In Ajaya, he’s the wronged prince. The legitimate heir who keeps getting pushed aside for his cousins. The one who actually earned his position while the Pandavas claimed theirs through birth and divine favor.

He’s principled. He treats people with respect regardless of caste. He values loyalty and merit over lineage and divine blessing. He sees through the Pandavas’ manipulation and calls it out—but nobody listens because the gods are supposedly on their side.

And the frustrating thing? Once you’re seeing it from his perspective, his grievances make sense.

Why should the Pandavas—who showed up later, whose father disowned the crown—get half the kingdom? Why should divine birth matter more than actual skill and hard work? Why should Duryodhana be expected to just accept this because Krishna says the Pandavas have destiny on their side?

The book doesn’t just tell you Duryodhana has a point. It makes you feel it. Makes you angry on his behalf. Makes the traditional story start looking like a rigged game where the Pandavas always had an unfair advantage and then got praised for winning.

The Pandavas: Heroes or Hypocrites?

This is where the book gets really uncomfortable.

The Pandavas in Ajaya aren’t noble warriors fighting for what’s right. They’re manipulative, self-righteous people who use their divine connections and their reputation for righteousness to get away with things that would be condemned in anyone else.

They claim to be humble but demand respect. They preach dharma but bend rules whenever it’s convenient. They present themselves as victims while actively working to take what isn’t theirs.

And Krishna? In this version, he’s not the wise guide helping establish dharma. He’s the ultimate manipulator—justifying every underhanded tactic, every moral compromise, by claiming it serves a higher purpose that only he can see.

Now, is this fair? Is this what the Pandavas were really like?

Here’s the thing: the original Mahabharata also exaggerates. It makes the Pandavas more virtuous than any real people could be. It justifies their every action with divine will. It presents their victory as proof of righteousness.

So if one version can make them heroes by amplifying their virtues and downplaying their flaws, why can’t another version do the opposite? Why can’t a retelling amplify their flaws and question their virtues?

That’s what makes Ajaya interesting. It’s not claiming to be more true than the original. It’s claiming equal right to tell the story differently.

Moral Inversion, Not Just Complexity

Some Mahabharata retellings try to add nuance. They show that both sides had good and bad people, that everyone made mistakes, that the truth was complicated.

Ajaya doesn’t do that. It inverts.

Where the original makes Kauravas bad and Pandavas good, Ajaya makes Kauravas good and Pandavas bad. It’s not adding shades of grey—it’s flipping black and white.

This will work for some readers and not for others.

If you find it refreshing: You’ll appreciate finally seeing a version where Duryodhana gets to defend himself. Where his side of the story gets told with the same conviction and moral certainty that the Pandavas have enjoyed for millennia. Where the losers finally get their say.

If you find it too much: You might feel like the book just replaces one moral absolutism with another. That it’s not really questioning the epic’s moral framework, just reversing who gets to be righteous.

Both reactions are valid. Because the book is deliberately provocative. It’s not trying to be balanced—it’s trying to make you uncomfortable with the idea that balance even matters when only one side has been telling the story for thousands of years.

History Belongs to Who?

This is the question the book keeps asking, directly and indirectly: Why should history—or in this case, epic memory—always belong to those who won?

The Pandavas won the war. So they got to tell the story. They got to explain why they were right and their cousins were wrong. They got to frame their victory as dharma triumphing over adharma.

But what if they were just better at war? Or luckier? Or had more powerful divine allies?

What if winning doesn’t actually prove you were right, just that you were stronger?

Ajaya suggests that maybe we’ve been accepting the Pandavas’ narrative simply because they survived to tell it. That maybe if the Kauravas had won, we’d have a completely different epic. One where Duryodhana was the righteous king defending his inheritance against entitled cousins who felt they deserved everything because of their birth.

And that possibility—that the entire moral framework of the Mahabharata might just be winner’s propaganda—is deeply unsettling.

Because if that’s true for the Mahabharata, what about actual history? How many times have we accepted a narrative simply because the victors wrote it? How many “villains” were actually people with legitimate grievances who lost the war?

The book doesn’t answer these questions. It just forces you to ask them.

The Writing: Accessible but Loaded

Neelakantan’s prose is straightforward. Easy to read. Not trying to be literary or poetic.

The story moves. Events you know from the traditional Mahabharata happen, but reframed. Familiar scenes take on different meanings when you’re seeing them from Duryodhana’s perspective.

Emotionally, the writing leans into grievance and injustice. You feel Duryodhana’s frustration. His anger at being constantly dismissed and sidelined. His exhaustion at fighting a rigged system where the gods have already decided who deserves to win.

There’s moral certainty here, not ambiguity. Duryodhana knows he’s right. The book wants you to know it too.

For some readers, this clarity is engaging. You’re not left wondering what to think—the book has a clear point of view and argues it forcefully.

For others, the lack of doubt might feel heavy-handed. Like you’re being told what to think rather than invited to figure it out yourself.

But maybe that’s the point. The original Mahabharata doesn’t present the Pandavas’ righteousness as ambiguous. It declares it. So why should a counter-narrative be more tentative?

Who This Book Is For

You’ll probably love this if:

• You want to see the Mahabharata from a completely different angle
• You’re open to radical perspective shifts
• You enjoy books that challenge traditional narratives
• You’re interested in how history gets written by victors
• You’ve always felt something was off about the traditional story
• You like retellings that take strong positions rather than trying to be balanced
• You’re curious what happens when villains get to tell their side

You might struggle with it if:

• You’re attached to the traditional Mahabharata and its moral framework
• You’re uncomfortable seeing heroes recast as villains
• You want nuanced exploration rather than moral inversion
• You prefer retellings that try to be fair to all characters
• You don’t like books with clear ideological agendas
• You want ambiguity and complexity over conviction

This is a book for people who want their assumptions challenged. Who can handle their heroes being questioned. Who are willing to consider that maybe, just maybe, we’ve been rooting for the wrong side all along.

Does the Exaggeration Work?

Here’s the honest question: Is Ajaya too one-sided? Does it go too far in making Duryodhana right and the Pandavas wrong?

Maybe. If you’re looking for a balanced retelling, yes, it goes too far.

But maybe that’s exactly the point.

The original Mahabharata exaggerates constantly. It makes the Pandavas impossibly virtuous. It explains away their questionable actions with divine justification. It presents their victory as cosmic proof that they were right.

If that kind of exaggeration is acceptable—if we can have an epic where one side is clearly right and the other clearly wrong—then why can’t we have a version that exaggerates in the opposite direction?

Ajaya might not be more true than the original. But it’s equally valid as a perspective. As a reminder that every story depends entirely on who’s allowed to speak.

And for thousands of years, Duryodhana hasn’t been allowed to speak. We’ve only heard what his enemies said about him.

This book gives him a voice. And yes, that voice is angry. Defensive. Convinced of its own righteousness.

But isn’t that how the Pandavas’ voice sounds in the original?

Book Details

Other Books by Anand Neelakantan

• Asura: Tale of the Vanquished (2012)
• Ajaya: Rise of Kali (2015)
• The Rise of Sivagami (2017)
• Bhoomija: Sita (2017) (Novella)
• Shanta: The Story of Rama’s Sister (2017) (Novella)
• Vanara: The Legend of Baali, Sugreeva and Tara (2018)
• Ravana’s Sister: Meenakshi (2018) (Novella)
• Chaturanga (2020)
• Queen of Mahishmathi (2020) (Bhoomija in some editions)
• Valmiki’s Women: Five Tales from the Ramayana (2021)
• Mahi: The Elephant Who Flew Over the Blue Mountains (2023)
• The Tale of the Naughty Flying Mountains (2023)
• Nala Damayanti: An Eternal Tale from the Mahabharata (2023)
• The Tale of a Naughty Prank (2024)
• The Asura Way: The Contrarian Path to Success (2024)
• Many Ramayanas, Many Lessons (2025)

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