Tuesday, May 03, 2011

Mahabharata – TV series

Off late I have been watching Mahabharata, yes the TV version that was telecasted back in the 1980’s. The episodes are all on Youtube. At the time they telecasted, my knowledge of Hindi was pretty limited, I couldn’t completely understand, let alone appreciate the work. Now that I am seeing for the second time, I quite like the way it is done. They had put in a lot of efforts to make it this good. The dialogues are well written and the concept is well developed.

For those who are more interested in looking at the story from a different point of view, it is fun to watch the ego play of Duryodhana and his friends including mama Shakuni and Karna and how the ego of the family (father and son) destroyed the whole kingdom. It is interesting to watch how Bhishma in the guise of his oath runs away from Dharma and the price he pays in the end by lying on a bed of arrows pierced through the body. The other one that cracks me up is the way Dharmaraya believes that being goody goody all the time towards everybody is Dharma (you will find a ton of examples for this in the serial). In the end I realized the only person who followed dharma till the end was Vidhura and nobody else. The Bhagavadgita part is also very well done.       

I think it is worth a watch, considering its free and legally available. It has a few strong messages that are apt even today. On  a lighter note, most songs in the episodes have the same tune.

ps: since there is no 1 version of Mahabharata, there are some interpretations that does not match the “actual Vyasa Bharata”, here is a link if you are patient enough to read through. 

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