Rediscovering Hindu Mythology : A Literary Perspective

Belonging to a generation which is now parenting the new e-gen, we were fed the regular potions of stories from mythology as part of growing up. A righteous son,  brother, husband, prince and king, Lord Rama was portrayed as being  anukaraneeye (ought to be followed) whereas Lord Krishna became vandaneeye (ought to be prayed) as his trickeries, manipulations, friendship with big gang of gopies were definitely some of the actions which should just be revered as Lord's special tricks. During the schooling years the magna stories got adorned with regal illustrations, thanks to Ramananda Sagar and B.R.Chopra for bringing these grand epics to our homes.  Those slotted times over the weekends, the small screens, the places in the drawing rooms (yes, those were the times when idiot boxes embellished the beauty of most of the drawing rooms in the homes) assumed the significance of a shrine and the characters mouthing the dialogues of our Gods became real life Gods. 

Opulent mythology on screen became an in thing and many followed suit and still do but the charm of 'first' is always unique and can never be replicated.

The literary field followed a similar trend. Ramayana, Mahabharata, Bhaagwat and many more were supposed to be read and recited directly from the religious scriptures, the holy books, neatly wrapped in bright red cloth. However, C.Rajagopalachari was among the prominent names who brought the grand epics in easy to understand language making reading and understanding these scriptures more accessible for all. Such books became official retellings of the epics.

Generations changed, the new breed of authors took another big leap and made an attempt not only to understand but to analyse various towering personas of the epics from their individual perspectives. The first in this category which captured the attention of many and mine too was - 'The Palace of Illusions' by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. She made the voice of Draupdi audible for the first time, a woman who does not feel shy of verbalizing her fantasies, desires, aspirations and more importantly her dislikes too.  With liberal fictional support throughout the narrative, it succeeded in bringing a very fresh perspective.

Gurcharan Das, a fine author, a public intellectual  and a well respected commentator on social, economic and political fabric of the country extrapolated the events and reactions of those existing in the era of Krishna to the situations today in his 'Difficulty of Being Good'. He introduced and taught the world the wisely worded definitions of sadharan-dharma and sva-dharma. Former being associated to caste/varna/society and the latter defines the innate nature of an individual and how the work of these two in unison or otherwise defines and dictates our actions.

Devdutt Pattanaik, has accumulated a great body of work in lore writing. His 'Jaya' is a fine version of Mahabharata originally called 'Jaya' only.  Devdutt works on the premise that since this ancient epic has been written, retold, translated and interpreted by many, there are many variations in the main story as well as the tertiary stream of stories that join the main saga. He has written books on Shiva, Kali, Ganesha, Rama and many more. He has penned some interesting short stories for children too with some contemporary twist.  

When we talk about the names to reckon with, in the genre of mythology, Ashok K. Banker's name is surely among the front runners. He has made an indelible mark on this literary space through his much acclaimed - Ramayana series, Krishna Coriolis and now ongoing series on Mahabharata. He has presented the heroes as ordinary humans going through similar vicissitudes in life as we do.

Not just of the abovementioned seasoned authors, mythology has caught the fancy of many new entrants on the literary firmament too. Nilanjan P. Chodhury (Bali and the Ocean of Milk) and Amish Tripathi (Immortals of Meluha) are a couple of names who have taken cues from legendary stories and have fabricated their own tales around them with a lot of fictional element in the narrative. They have showcased their wit and creativity in spinning a completely new yarn out of the raw material. It is impressive how they so seamlessly conjoin the historical and mythical facts with contemporary terminology so that their pieces of writing take modern look and feel.

For instance, Nilanjan integrates the setting of ocean churning with scientific facts like Big Bang while astutely incorporating political references and peppering the whole medley with some extant lingo - facebook, mobile phone cameras, animal rights violation, low fat milk and likes of these.

Highlights of Amish Tripathi's writing are - the introduction of duality of life and their coexistence, and the definition of Shiva(God and goodness). He mesmerised the readers with his belief when he writes thus - an ordinary man can become Mahadev and that is possible only when he fights for good. Har Har Mahadev - All of us are Mahadev.

A very recent entrant in the writing field, Ravi Venu retells the story of Ramayana - 'I, Rama' from the voice of the central character - Rama himself. The book has the potential of getting noticed and appreciated because of some unique points. 

There are some books written from Ravana's point of view too and I am sure time is not far when we would have these great tales presented from each and every characters' perspective.

But what is the need to retell or redefine the stories? As I understand it, there could be more than one possibilities.

"Yada Yada Hi Dharmasya, Glanirva Bhavathi Bharatha,

Abhyuthanam Adharmaysya, Tadatmanam Srijami Aham."

Which means - "Whenever there is decay, of righteousness O! Bharatha And a rise of unrighteousness, then I manifest Myself!" These words are believed to be uttered by the God himself in Bhagawat Gita. We grew up believing that we are in Kaliyug and we must await the arrival of the tenth incarnate of God who will bring semblance to the chaotic ways of life on Earth. Seeing all the research and analysis that is going on in order to understand and redefine time defying epics, I wonder, would some literary piece rise to reach the zenith to be an incarnate itself? Who knows, it might just happen this time. 

Or as the well acclaimed writer - Devdutt Pattanaik says - "In these modern times, we are eager to correct people, Rama (Gods) included, rather than understand them". So perhaps the critically analysing(rather fault finding) tendency of modern human is making us question our super heroes and eventually leading some of us to re-sketch them as per our tastes and sensibilities.

Or have we understood that the pearls of wisdom that get accumulated over the ages are the ones which can withstand any test of time? As a result a little bit of tweaking is done in order to package them as relevant and relatable for the contemporary generation.

Or is this because of the lack of any contemporary hero; because as Mc Henry says 'every generation needs its own heroes'. In the absence of any hero in our lives, we are trying to shuffle the pages of history and mythology to look for solutions to our current age problems.

I firmly believe that the way any story (epic or otherwise) is understood, analysed and presented has a lot to do with a myriad of factors - the time, and the prevailing mindset, customs and culture of that time. So when we experience almost complete metamorphosis of our society with time, perhaps redefining mythology is not wrong either. Some great endeavours have been made by comprehending minds and we must appreciate the same.

Book Review : A Fine Family

Author : Gurcharan Das

Image courtesy : Amazon

After reading "Difficulty of being good" by Gurcharan Das, I had to read some of his other works. So I picked this book up. "A Fine Family" - a story of three generations, set against the backdrop of changing India - physically as well as at the soul level. The story starts from the time when India was trying to stand on her own feet to get the long due freedom from the Britishers. The main character - Bauji, was a successful lawyer in Lyallpur (now in Pakistan) with his extended family enjoying the benefits of being an urban middle class family. It focuses on the thoughts and feelings of the people at that time when the independence of India was being decided by the leaders on both sides of the table. How the negotiations affected the people of those regions, who literally paid the price for independence of India by giving everything which belonged to them - from material things to their lives. A heart wrenching narration of partition incidents and how some lucky few could cross the border to be on the safer lands. Bauji's family was one among those which could reach the new India, with smaller physical map and a bleeding heart. Loosing just one daughter to the mad riots at that time was the minimum damage they could think of. Many concerns have been raised by the author which I am sure lingered ( and still lingering) on in people's minds and memories - were/are we not competent enough to be a leader of ourselves, were we habitual of being led only. Was the partition of 1947 justified, did the leaders failed the common people who were living in denial till the last moments of partition thinking that this senseless communal violence would stop soon. These are the questions which have been raised and been discussed innumerable times but I guess, some questions are destined to remain unanswered.

Then comes the next generation - a generation which mainly got busy filling up the positions which were being vacated by the British people. It is being depicted through the life of Bauji's daughter Tara and her family. The moods, likes and dislikes of Tara and majority of that generation, quite different from her own husband (Seva Ram) though. Inspite of spending the lives together, they both remain unconvinced by the ways which appeal to the other person.

And the third - Tara and Seva Ram's son - Arjun, who wants to achieve more. So he steps out on his own to explore life in a totally different city - Mumbai.

One striking thing which comes out after reading this book is that no matter what times, which generation, humans do have an innate ability of coming out even from worst of situations - triumphant, owing to the grit and determination. It was evident in all three generations - Bauji starting his life afresh after having suffered the perils of partition, Tara having to compromise on marriage front and getting on with the new life which was being chosen for her by her elders and Arjun having left the unpleasant experience of being convicted (wrongly) behind him.

Gurcharan Das is a great story-teller with flawless language and has beautifully portrayed the desires and then adjustments, strengths and weaknesses - of human mind.

Book Review : Difficulty of Being Good

Image source : Flipkart
Author : Gurcharan Das

A book very well written and very informative. It has wonderfully analyzed the subject on hand - Mahabhartha, its main characters and how they handled the situations when their integrity was in question or at stake. I have great appreciation for the author - Gurcharan Das, who has dealt with the issues very objectively without getting biased towards or prejudiced against any particular side in the dharam-yudh. This epic is so vast, great and complicated that it validates the point over and over again- "What is here is found elsewhere, what is not here is nowhere."

The book attempts to define two types of dharma - sadharan dharma and sva dharma. Former being associated to caste or varna or society and the latter is what defines the innte nature of an individual. For the perfect balance, these two need to work in unison but sometimes, they start conflicting with each other as was the case with Yudhishthir. The sadharan-dharma dictated him to function as a king, according to which, fighting/killing becomes part of the duties whereas his sva-dharma guided him to save every single individual no matter what.

I marvelled at one of the many observations of the author - "The epic is obsessed with questions of right and wrong and it analyses human failures constantly". All characters, without any exception, had to stoop down from their own high levels of being ardent dharma followers, when the situations arose.

Krishna - the God (or is he?), has a much larger than life role to play during His whole time on earth. Be it his childhood pranks in Gokul, his encounter with Kansa, his marriage expeditions and then his involvement with his dear friends Pandavas. While being a part of the battle between Kauravas and Pandavas, yet not directly involved as an active warrior, Krishna plots many plans to make Pandavas win the battle. He tries his best, as a peace messenger to avert the battle but when it is not possible, he believes that no matter what type of means are employed - fair or unfair, battle has to be won. The reason that Pandavas' cause is just, is sufficient enough to even use unjust means or tricks to achieve that result.

Other main characters of the epic are also a lot thought provoking - be it,
* Bhishma, who got his name after taking an oath - never to marry and to remain loyal to the throne of Hastinapur without giving it any thought that there may come some time when the king is not capable enough to deserve such loyalty. But he remained true to his words till his last breath.

* Karna, who even after coming to know of the fact that he was the brother of five Pandavas, remained loyal to his friend - Duryodhana and we do not find any flaw in this character except on two occasions when he was a party to the assembly where Draupadi was disgraced and when Abhimanyu was killed in a foul play. He remained "a true giver" all through his life. Our sympathies do go with this character, who had to pay for none of his faults.

*Yudhishthir, son of Dharma himself, who dared tread the path of doing what is expected of him at any given time, was put to tests many times by Dharma. In the end, Indra gave him an exceptional boon as he truly remained a great person and felt for other creatures more than how he felt for himself. We feel the anxiety, remorse and sadness that he finds himself in after the war. Despite having won the war, he considers himself a loser after the battle is over. He comes across as a very strong personality in the epic.

While reading this book, the readers would not be able to avoid getting many doubts and questions themselves. I think, the doubts basically on two planes - about some of the incidents that happened in Mahabharatha and then questions about the current times.

• Is it even feasible to compare the two times and trying to get the answers from the epic? Are not the two situations so mutually exclusive or for that matter, any two situations and times are so disjoint that comparison becomes impossible.
• What are we trying to achieve from this comparison? Fine, even at that time humans found it difficult to remain true to the path of dharma, is it a justification to not take - "being good" part that seriously.
• Is "being good or not good" a function of situation concerned?
• Who decides and on what basis can humans be good or not good at any particular time ?
• How important is the fairness of the means in achieving a fair result? And who decides the fairness of means or of the result?
• Can there be a broad definition of Dharma with which majority of people could relate and try to adhere to or is it too subjective and varied as the humans themselves are? The definition of Dharma was too varied for the characters of Mahabharatha themselves. Some did not think its wrong to sacrifice an individual for the benefit of majority whereas some were not ready to even sacrifice a single individual despite knowing the fact that that particular individual could bring more problems for others.
• The author very nicely puts - "if greed is the vice of capitalism, envy is the flaw of socialism". Is there a possibility of having a stable system for human race, which can atleast aim to do away with these faults?
• Is making the tricks (which Krishna plotted) public during the great battle, a way to convey the message to the world - to err is very much human.

The author has done a lot of research and compared the characters of this epic with many other kings and personalities from the world history. Really a thought provoking piece of writing and offers a lot of substance.