A Poem on Time and the Play of Life

Kala — time — is close to a character in the Mahabharat. It is invoked at the great reversals, and the epic keeps returning to the idea that the actors are less in charge of the story than they believe. Bhishma choosing the hour of his own death is the exception that makes the rule visible.

The framing is not fatalism, and the difference matters. Nobody in the epic is excused by time; they are simply not permitted to imagine they command it. What remains theirs is the quality of what they do inside it.