Besides his prodigious public service record as an economist, the late Bibek Debroy contributed very greatly to reviving the soul of India, which resides in her scriptures. Written simply and accessibly with footnotes, Debroy’s labours of love have found favour with the Indian public for their reverse engineering – using the English language to re-possess these ancient spiritual texts and …
MUMBAI ‘Jaya: The Victory’, a rock musical based on the Mahabharata has many parallels in contemporary global politics, marking the epic’s universal pull. This Mahabharata adaptation is enlivened by rock music, Kathak and Kalari “When Krishna asks Duryodhana to compromise with only five villages for the Pandavas, he says he won’t part with land enough to hold a needle tip. …
Mahabharata lays a great stress on truth. In the Anushasana Parva, Bhishma tells Yudhishthira: Satyeshu yatitavyam vah satyam hi param balam| Exert in truth, for truth is the greatest force. We may think that speaking the truth and refraining from uttering lies may count as following the truth, but this may not always be enough. A plan was hatched by …
The Mahabharata is the biggest epic and the longest poem in the world. The five Pandava brothers —Yudhishthira, Bheem, Arjuna, Sahdev and Nakul — along with their wife, Draupadi are in exile in the Dvaitavana forest, after Yudhishthira lost his kingdom and his wife to the Kauravas in a game of dice. When I first read the Yaksha Prashna, I …
Do you remember BR Chopra’s epic television show Mahabharata? When we think about Yudhishthira, we immediately think about the actor Gajendra Chauhan who essayed the mythological character in the series. Not many people know that actor Nitish Bhardwaj, who played Shri Krishna in Mahabharata was not the first choice for the role. Gajendra Chauhan’s career trajectory In the meantime, aside …
Malayalam literature has a rich tradition of interpreting and retelling the Mahabharata. Scholar, critic and writer Sunil P. Elayidom has joined this long list of Mahabharata interpreters and retellers with his latest book in Malayalam, Mahabharatham: Samskarika Charithram. Elayidom’s book is a compilation of his Mahabharata speech series, which he delivered across Kerala from 2016 onwards. The evolution Elayidom, like …