Mahabharat - 2

Dhritirashtra, the blind, was born of Ambika; Pandu, the pale one, was born of Ambalika; and Vidur, the righteous one, was born of the maid. Satyavati crowned Pandu as the king. Bhishma approaches the Subala, king of Gandhar for his daughter, Gandhari's hand in marriage for Dhritirashtra. This stuns her brother, Shakuni, who is insulted at the proposal for his sister. Nevertheless, Gandhari, accepts the proposal and voluntarily blindfolds herself to deny herself the pleasure of sight that her husband could never relish.
Dhritirashtra is shown as an ever-complaining, condescending person who feels he has been wronged by being born blind and the fact that he could not ascend the throne. Gandhari is always supportive. Dhritirashtra wants to beget a prince before Pandu and Kunti so as to be able to lay claim to the throne.
Meanwhile, Pandu wins over King Kuntibhoj's daughter, Kunti's hand in a swayamvara. Kunti was born as Pritha to King Shoorsen of the Yadu clan. Her childless uncle, Kuntibhoj adopted and rechristened her Kunti. Sage Durvasa paid a visit to Kuntibhoj and Kunti was a pretty good host. A pleased Durvasa grants her a mantra by which she could summon any God to beget her a child. Now curiosity got the better of her to try out this mantra. She summons Surya, the Sun God who is bound to grant her a son, Karna. Karna is born with Kavach (armor) and Kundala (earrings). The Kavach was to protect him in his battles and the Kundala were dipped in Amrit (nectar) for a long life. But Kunti, an unwed mother, could not raise Karna. She abandoned him by floating him in a river. Though not mentioned right here in this episode, Karna floated down river and was found and adopted by Adiratha, Dhritirashtra's charioteer, a sutra.
After he tied the knot, Pandu left on his conquests. He would not even stay a night with Kunti.
There is a whole load of material on Pandu on the web. One school of thought claims that he was impotent and, to hide this shortcoming, turned to a very heartless warrior conquering lands and vanquishing his enemies ruthlessly. He was cursed by a sage who he killed while he (the sage) had assumed the form of a deer and was copulating that he would be impotent and would die if he approached his wife for sex. Gosh! A whole lot of sexual undertone governed the Mahabharat. And there sure was a lot of confusion about relationships and reactions to them.
Pandu assimilated Kashi, Anga, Bengal, Kalinga and Magadh into Hastinapur. During one of his marches, he was confronted by the King of Madra who sought Pandu's friendship and gave his sister Madri's hand in marriage.
Per the counsil's suggestions, Pandu along with his wives takes off on a vacation. He hands over the kingdom's reigns to Dhritirashtra. During one of his hunting exploits, he mistakes the sounds created by Sage Kindan who was making love to his wife to that of a tiger and shoots. The dying sage spits out a curse that anytime Pandu was to get intimate with his wives, he would die.
Wow! Now THATS a curse!
To atone for this murder, Pandu comes back to Hastinapur to announce that he will be spending the rest of his life in penance for his folly and hands over the crown to Dhritirashtra. One of the main reasons for man to be live is to procreate and Pandu cannot do just this. He explains his dilemma to Kunti who remembers the boon that Sage Durvasa had bestowed to her and summons Dharmaraj, Vaayu and Indra to beget Yudhishtir, Bhim and Arjun respectively while Madri summons the Ashwin twins to beget Nakul and Sahadev. These five brothers were collectively called the Pandavas. Meanwhile, Gandhari gave birth to a 100 sons starting with Duryodhan and Dushasan and one daughter, Dushala. They were collectively called the Kauravas.
That was one helluva productive woman who never heard of birth control! On researching this fact, I found how this might have happened.
"When Gandhari's pregnancy continued for an unusually long period of time, she beat her womb in frustration, at the envy of Kunti, the queen of Pandu who had given birth to Yudhishtir. Due to this, a hardened mass of grey-colored flesh produced from her womb. Gandhari was shocked and upset. She worshiped Vyasa, who had blessed her with one hundred sons, to redeem his words.Vyasa divides the flesh ball into one hundred equal pieces, and puts them in pots of ghee, which are sealed and buried into the earth for one year. At the end of the year, the Kauravas emerge." [cited from Wikipedia]