Stories of many great women, their achievements andtheir sufferings, are recounted in the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. Sita, Kunti and Draupadi are among the better known. These women went through several painful ordeals, but they had just one hope to sustain them – they had noble children.

The case of Gandhari, the mother of the Kauravas is different. She was a good woman who gave birth to wicked sons. There was treachery all around her. Her husband was weak and ambitious, her brother Shakuni, was an arch-villain and her hundred sons were filled with hatred and violence. She stood among them, for virtue and truth – like a solitary lotus in a marshy swamp.