Epics
Ganesh Chathurthi
Ganesh, made of Modakam, steam-cooked rice dumplings.
It took 15 days and almost 3.5 tons of Modakam to make this Ganesha. Ganesha is placed at Venkatanarayana Road, near T Nager, Chennai
Ravanan
Image of the week
Return of the Demon King!
Found this banner of Ravanan the movie,Tamil version,in front of Kasi theatre in Ashok Nagar, Chennai!
Ravanan
Ravanan is back!
This time its Maniratnam’s version. have a look at teaser
Its not the first time that Maniratnam has taken threads from epics.
One of his biggest hits,”Dalapathi” was losely based on the great epic Mahabharata.
This time it’s Ravanan from Ramayanam. Ramayanam has various interpretations in various places.
Raavanah means ‘one who makes people cry by his violent actions. Sage Valmiki depicted Ravanan as ten headed demon king. The symbolic meaning of “10 headed” is that he is guided by and does not have control over the five senses and five bodily instruments of action. An alternative interpretation is that he possessed a very thorough knowledge in the 4 vedas, and 6 upanishadas,which made him as powerful as 10 scholars. He also authored Ravana Sanhita, a powerful book on the Hindu astrology,also known as Lal Kitab. Ravana possessed a thorough knowledge of Ayurveda and political science
Raja Ravi Varma’s Painting of Ravana, killing Jatau
In Sage Kambar’s version, Ramavataram, Ravanan and Mandorai’s first born was a girl that was Sita, but astrologer predicted that the the girl would become reason for his destruction.He threw away the kid in a basket. The baby didnt die, instead was safe in the earth and was found later by king Janaka who brought her up as his daughter. The great Malayalam poet Vayalar Rama Varma took this thread and penned “Ravanaputhri”
Devdutt Pattanaik,Chief Belief Officer at Future Group , has a different version. According to him Ravanan represents the law of the jungle where might is right. “Humans have the ability to say no to the law of the jungle – and the human journey from the animal to the divine is the gradual rejection of the law of the jungle. Ravana is the animal because he tries to take Sita by force because he is stronger. That is what one must conquer,” Pattanaik says. full version of article
We need to wait and see what’s Maniratnam version of Ravanan (Ramayanam)is,
So lets wait!
The Mahabharata
Mahabharata, what is not in it, is nowhere!
Part V: Road block
Remember the Tank man’s protest by blocking the Tanks at Tiananmen square in 1989? if thats too old, there are enough road blocking instances happening in India (almost on a daily basis in Kerala) by almost all the political parties.Blocking roads has become the most abused form of protest.
There is a different type of Road blocking happening in the Great Mahabharata. Panchali, during the exile once asked Bhima for the most beautiful kalyana sougandhikam flower. He went in search of the flower in the forest.On the way he found an old monkey lying and blocking his way. Bhima,greatly annoyed at the old monkey lying in his path,asked him to move off but the monkey told he was too old to move and requested Bhima to move his tail and keep it aside. Bhima tried with his fingers first then with one and later even with two hands but couldn’t even nudge the tail by an inch.Later Bhima tried to move the tail with his gada(mace), but found to his dismay, that the gada which is now under the monkey’s tail cannot be moved at all.Bhima realised that the old monkey was no ordinary one.he begged the old monkey to reveal his true identity.Hanuman gave his introduction and asked Bhima to shed his false pride,blessed him. One more instances of what is not in The Mahabharata, is nowhere
The Mahabharata
Mahabharata, what is not in it, is nowhere!
Part IV: Male pregnancy
This is in continuation of my series on The Great Indian Epic, The Mahabharata
If you missed Part I(War live commentary), II(Walkout) and III(Quiz)
There is this wonderful movie Juniorof Arnold Schwarzenegger,becoming pregnant and giving birth to a baby. Its quite interesting to watch a man getting pregmant and giving birth.In animal world,Sea horse take care of the so called female activity but if you look at Mahabharata, you come across a similar incident.
Once,few boys of Krishna’s Yadhava clan dressed up a boy Samban, as a pregnant woman. They teased Sage Durvasar asking him if the child would be a boy or a girl. Enraged Durvasar cursed that a steel pestle would be born which would annihilate the entire YAdhava clan. Same thing happened and the steel pestle resulted in the downfall of the Krishna clan. One more plot confirming the fact that what is not in Mahabharata, is nowhere!
The Mahabharata
Mahabharata, what is not in it, is nowhere!
Quiz
Sidharth Basu, the person synonym with “Quizzing” in India, famous for his Quiz time series in 1980s and later Mastermind India series in late 1990s to early 2000s.
It was reported in national dailies that the sales of various books on General Knowledge went up. The whole India was keen on answering Basu’s questions.
Even before Basu’s Quiz Time, in 1970s there was another Quiz show “The Cadbury Bournvita Quiz Contest. It was started as a live Quiz show in various cities across India; it later became a radio show hosted by Amin Sayani and then, a television show hosted by Derek O’Brien. Then there were G.S.Pradeep’s reverse quiz’ Aswamedham’ on Kairali TV, DD Podhigai the Tamil channel’s Live Sports Quiz Programme conducted by Dr.Sumanth C.Raman.
In Mahabharata there is an interesting Quiz. Pandavas were on their 13th year in forest. One day Nakul was asked to go and fetch some water. He went and found a pond and was about to fetch some water, a yaksha’s voice was heard warning him not to do so. Nakul ignored the voice but before he could drink the water he fell down motionless. Same fate happened to Sahadev, Arjun and Bhim. At last Yudhishthira went and found all his four brothers dead near a pond. He also tried to take water but again Yaksha asked him to stop and said if he could answer all the questions correctly he could get back his brothers. Yudhishthira agreed and answered all the questions correctly. Yaksha was Yama, Yudhishthira’s father. Thus Yama became the first quiz master and his son Yudhishthira the sole participant and winner also. His prize was his four brothers’ lives.
(To be continued…)
The Mahabharata
Mahabharata, what is not in it, is nowhere!
Walkout
Walkouts are daily affairs nowadays. You see walkouts at Parliament, at General assemblies, even in party meetings. Generally opposition stage walkouts. They are there to oppose as the name suggest. If you are against some policies or if some issues are not discussed, if some people are not given the permission to talk they stage walkout. Some times walkout happens in the same party. If they don’t agree with the party or some persons the same party men stage walkout
So walkouts are most common nonviolent protest. There is a reference to walkout in Mahabharata also.
Occasion: Rajasuya performed by Yudhishthira. As per the custom, the Pandavas invited the other kings after the slaying of Jarasandha and performed the Rajasuya. Time came for doing honours of the occasion. The custom was to render first honour to the guest who was considered most worthy of taking precedence over all others.
The question arose as to who should be honored first. Bhisma and Yudhishthira’s choice was Sri Krishna, the king of Dwaraka.
Yudhishthira followed the advice and under his instructions Sahadeva offered to Sri Krishna the honors enjoined by tradition. Sisupala, the king of Chedi, who hated Krishna, could not tolerate it. Sisupala after protesting rose from his seat and walked out calling upon the other kings to join him in resenting the insult. Many of them followed him.
And the tradition continues walkouts also.
(To be continued..)
The Mahabharata
Mahabharata, what is not in it, is nowhere!
War live commentary
Gulf war (2 August 1990 – 28 February 1991) fought between Iraq and the coalition force from 34 nations, with the purpose of expelling Iraqi forces from Kuwait after Iraq’s occupation and annexation of Kuwait in August 1990 is considered to be the first war that was live telecast. Channels like CNN, NBC, ABC, and CBS showed live footage of US’s Patriot missiles engulfing the Saddam’s Iraq.
Footage of Gulf war
First day
But was there anything like this in Mahabharata, the great Indian epic?
The Great War between Pandavas and Kauravas at Kurukshetra (believed to have happened some 3000 years before Jesus Christ’s birth) was the first war that was telecast live. If millions of people around the world saw the Gulf war live, there was only one person who saw live the Kurukshetra war, Sanjaya the charioteer of blind King Dhritarashtra. Just before the war, Veda Vyasa visited Dhritarashtra and asked if he was interested to see the war. Dhritarashtra did not want to see the war between his sons and their cousins so Vyasa gave ‘Divyachakshus’ (Special yogic power) to Sanjaya to see the war live. Sanjaya not only saw the war live but gave an excellent running commentary of the war to Dhritarashtra. And by doing so Sanjaya became the first commentator, the true predecessor of John Holliman and Peter Arnett of CNN and David Green and Andy Thompson who were part of CBS crew that reported the Gulf war.
(To be continued..)
