01 September,2009 08:34 AM IST | | Kasmin Fernandes, Lindsay Pereira and Aditi Sharma
Why does a story of family feud, war and right action dating back to 8th century B.C. bring together a writer in Delhi, a Media Professor in England and a Nuclear Medicine expert from Manchester?
Kurukshetra may have been a nuclear battle
Who: Dr Manish Gupta, consultant and honorary senior clinical lecturer in nuclear medicine
Medium: Film
"There are 150 astronomical references in Mahabharata. If it were a mere exaggerated account of a family feud, as some claim, why would there be so many astronomical references?" asks Dr Manish Pandit. In Mumbai to screen his documentary Krishna: History or Myth, the UK-based specialist in nuclear medicine thinks it's time we stopped categorising Indian scriptures as "mythology".
"Fantasies and miracles in knowledge don't make sense to me. Mahabharata is a fantastic epic, one which would have required more than just imagination to write. There is astronomical evidence that the Mahabharata war started on November 22, 3067 BC. So rare was the set of astronomical juxtapositions that it occurred only once in the last 10,000 years! The philosophy of Bhagwad Gita is hitherto unparalleled in the spiritual realm. No saint, prophet, master or mystic has covered so many topologies with so much mastery. It gives exact descriptions of things that happen today and could happen tomorrow," says Dr Pandit, who hails from Pune.
For instance, the theory that Mahabharata was a nuclear war. "Some weapons in the battle defy contemporary knowledge of weaponry that people of that time could have conceived. It is not surprising that the father of the atomic bomb, nuclear scientist Robert Oppenheimer, jumped after seeing the atomic blast and cited a similar verse from the Gita. The man had learned Sanskrit specifically to read the Gita in its original form."u00a0
Those were also years of major climatic shift on earth. The Sahara region changed from a habitable land to a barren desert, glaciers expanded to cover plants, atmospheric temperatures fell drastically. This was also the time the Harappan Civilization is supposed to have begun. "It may not be entirely unlikely, that these climatic shifts may have mimicked a nuclear winter," says Dr Pandit who had written books in Jyotisha and is considered an expert in Indian history and mysticism.
Yet, the epic does not propagate violence, according to the producer. "In fact, its beauty is that you don't need to study anything other than Mahabharata to understand human nature. Every circumstance shapes the destiny of every character, each giving a lesson for the world to learn," says the man who doesn't consider himself Hindu, Christian or Muslim. "You could say I believe in sanatan (eternal) dharma."
Shot in eight Indian cities, Cambodia, US and UK, Krishna: History or Myth relies on astronomical, archaeological, living and oral tradition to prove that "Krishna existed in reality, not merely in the scriptures".
What if Vyasa spoke to Wall Street bankers?
Who: Gurcharan Das, author
Medium: Book
What would Vyasa have to say about Wall Street? It's an intriguing premise. Imagine the sage credited with authoring our greatest epic, Mahabharata commenting on the age of excess that is our own. Thanks to Gurcharan Das though, imagining isn't necessary.
Seven years after writing the bestselling India Unbound, the Delhi-based author found himself looking for answers of another kind in the Mahabharata. Some of his questions rose from an unlikely source the Satyam scandal in early 2009. What emerged was The Difficulty of Being Good: On the Subtle Art of Dharma, plumbing the epic to answer a seemingly simple query: "Why be good?"
The most compelling aspect of the Mahabharata, according to Das, is that it addresses the central problem of how to live our lives in an examined way. "It holds a mirror to us," he says, "forcing us to confront the many ways in which we deceive ourselves; how we are false to others; and how we oppress fellow human beings. I have discovered that its world of moral haziness and uncertainty is closer to our experience as ordinary human beings rather than the narrow and rigid positions that define moral debate today, especially after 9/11."
In an introduction to the book, Das examines his motives carefully. 'What was the nature of moral failure in the case of the investment bankers on Wall Street who brought the world economy to its knees in 2008?' he writes. 'Greed is too easy an answer. There must be more to it.'
Where Indian Unbound examined the classical aim of artha, or material well being, The Difficulty of Being Good focuses on dharma, or moral well being. Its aim is a doctrine that can be applied to everything from relationships to business decisions interesting when one considers that Das retired as Managing Director, Procter & Gamble Worldwide, in 1995.
We ask if he has something to say to India's CEOs. His reply: "I applaud your ambition, but it should be for your company's success and not (only) for your own personal success and reward." He also has some advice for the Ambani brothers the subject of an amusing aside in his book: 'The smart thing would be negotiate and make up. Otherwise, both risk losing everything in a Kurukshetra-like war. But even smart and sensible human beings cannot overcome their tragic flaws."
It is a valid point. Even if Vyasa spoke to Wall Street, after all, would the bankers be ready to listen?
The Difficulty of Being Good: On the Subtle Art of Dharma by Gurcharan Das.
Published by Penguin Books, 434 pages.
For Rs 699
Characters can't set off on long excursions in 'express' Mahabharata
Who: Dr Chindu Sreedharan, professor at a media school
Medium: Twitter
With around one hundred thousand verses, long prose passages, and about 1.8 million words, the Mahabharata is the longest epic poem in the world. It's about 5 times longer than Dante's Divine Comedy, and 4 times the length of the Ramayana. So, how does it all fit on to Twitter, a medium that allows you no more than 140 characters? Dr Chindu Sreedharan, a professor at the Media School, Bournemouth University, England has been tweeting a version of Mahabharata inspired by Prem Panicker's reimagining called Bhimsen, for over a month. He has steadily gathered followers. They were 1,443 at last count. He says Epicretold is a pilot to understand what the shape of mobile content will be in years to come. Besides, a lot of people he encountered, especially his English colleagues, had tried reading the Mahabharata but got lost in the lengthy narrative. So, it was all about providing a storyline that was easier to follow.
Why the Mahabharata, not the Ramayana?
I got interested in the project while reading a re-telling of the Mahabharata (by Prem Panicker). Rather than write another tale with the same dramatic tension, I decided to base my tweets on this text. It's one of those beautiful tales that has all the ingredients that make a story work on a platform like this. I'm interested in war narratives; that is my area of academic interest. At heart, the Mahabharata is a story of war.
How different are your tweets from Panicker's work?
I've played around with the timeline and condensed it quite a bit, but it's more of information design rather than a complete reimagining. It's an experiment involving Twitter. Prem has the liberty to use as many words as he wants to develop the storyline, give depth to characters. I can't afford that. So, I pick and choose main incidents from the original text, and some incidents that Prem has developed to sustain the narrative. For instance, I've included an additional confrontation between Duryodhana and Bhima, which would foreshadow other more serious ones to follow.
Your tweets are not pre-written. How do you plan what will come up next?
I have a rough guide in my head based on Prem's narrative. I've been trying to write as I go along. I've already thought of what's going to come up next; it's just a question of putting it into words.
I write every day. If I have the time in the morning, I write 3-4 tweets at one go and then post them as and when I can. On days when I'm busy, I manage one tweet and then I follow it up whenever I get the time.
Get your Mahabharata updates on https://twitter.com/epicretold
