Dear all,
While the Epic Serial Mahabharata takes center stage as a
Television serial in Star plus, the much retold story is now in its second
digital version. While we the X generation grew up seeing Ramanand sagar’s
version, the new version appeals to the generation Y with its larger imprint on
technology and animation. The appeal to this generation from the youthfulness of the characters, compared
to their potbellied counterparts of the yesteryears. While in our joint families we heard our
grandmother’s versions of the epics, in todays nuclearized ‘’Macdonald Families”
these digital versions appears as yet another burger with a dose of commercialism
squeezed in between.
Mahabharata with its 36000 verses is believed as a fifth Veda not because of any religious significance, but due to the
socio-psychological message that the epic intends to convey by differentiating righteousness and non–righteousness (Read as Dharma and adharma ) and on the inevitable victory of truth in the end.
Besides the characterization and categorization of the plot have been made to bring
in the central theme of Bhagavad Gita
and its universal message, to be spilled across the subcontinent as an everlasting
living philosophy.
On an historical prospective
the epic reveals upon the omnipresent power politics and family feuds in courtrooms
leading to a war at kurushetra which
was nothing but evolved from the fuelled ambitions of the then urban kingdoms
in the sapta sindhu (Indo-Gangetic) region.
While the nucleus of the epic was an historical narration of the events around
800-1000 BC, the oral tradition of storytelling had swelled the narration to that
of a voluminous epic by the 4th Century AD. Further generations of
its interpretations inculcated fables, parables, myths legends and deductive anthologies
making it a grand Epic as it is read today. The belief that a single sage named
Ved Vyas has written it entirely is a
misnomer as the story is read as Vyasa
Uvacha meaning Vyasa narrated
where the Vyasa here is an agglomeration
of a series of individuals christened as Vyasa
or the learned one. (Please read ‘The great epic of India: Its Characters and
origin “by Edward Washburn)
Today when we move away from
oral tradition to a digital tradition of storytelling , hope the story remains
as it is now and does not get into yet another silicon version. However for today’s
generation, these episodes even though give enough food for thought even though
for traditionalists like me, it is just a soup opera.
However kudos to the entire
and cast for their best efforts. Praneet Bhat who plays Shakuni is the best of
the lot.
Keep Seeing
Sanyasi
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