Mahabharata – The Bach

Raajneeti was a neat and decent movie, one more from Prakash Jha. I dint feel it was fantastic, definitely not a masterpiece as most of blogosphere felt. It wasn’t bad either, considering most of the Bollywood movies of this genre are disasters. I would rate this 6.5 out of 10 overall. Movie is well presented keeping story fast moving, the only reason why audience managed to sit back for three hours. I still feel they could have cut down the length without harming the gist of the movie.

I am a big fan of Ranbir Kapoor, for the fact that he always puts his best. He has beautifully managed his big character in this big movie. I can’t think of any other actor in business who could fit to this role of being young blood and smart. Katrina Kaif is not made for this but I could tolerate her anyway, no harm done. Nana Patekar, Ajay Devgan and Naseeruddin Shah were okay, but Manoj Bajpai and Arjun Rampal lost their pitch couple of times. There were definitely scopes of improvement in both acting and direction departments.

Movie is made for Indian’s with orthodox Indian masala genre. Good to see this presentation after a long time, since most current day Bollywood movies are made for NRIs with customised ‘butter chicken masala’. The language was good, classic Hindi(with some flaws). Something you can recall from the days of Doordarshan TV serials Chanakya, etc. presentation of thousands of supporters campaigning in open fields of a political arena was fantastic. Producers did not hold their selves from spending a single rupee.

***Spoiler alert***

Thumbs up for

Kabaddi: Cricket wouldn’t have given same punch.
Sound effect: The cinema I went to watch had very good sound system especially after effects of car explosion.

Thumbs down for

Language: sometime it became too much classic, sounding as if they are speaking some ancient knowledge. Few Urdu words also crawled in, which sounded odd.
Mother of the movie (Kunti) changes her political stands from ‘far left’ to ‘far right’. This rarely happens in real life, looked like Karl Marks selling ‘asset based securities’.
Sex, violence and pregnancies: Sex can be justified that Bollywood is moving ahead from “kissing flowers”. Violence is Jha’ movie signature, but what’s up with pregnancies? Does it prove Banks of Ganga is most fertile land in whole of India?
Fight: all four (Nana, Ranbir, Ajay and Manoj) can aim so well, looked amazingly stupid. Ranbir is supposed to be a PHd student.
What happens after epic war is over? Media is up to the neck of every character throughout the movie, but nobody cares after evil is dead?

By this time you already might have read about plot of this movie being inspired by ‘Godfather I’ and Mahabharata. I am attempting to list down the similarities, feel free to add if have missed any.

With Godfather I

There are Sonny Corleone (Arjun), and Michael Corleone (Ranbir), Tom Hagen (nana) and a character vaguely similar to veto Corleone.
Sonny’s character is of an established goon from the beginning, but Michael’s character (initially reluctant) gets dragged into Mafia after deaths of Vito and Sonny’s death.
Tom’s character masterminds most of the criminal activities, including one death on mate of Babulal. It was a horse in Godfather.
Assassination of Sonny, retaliation by Michael.

With Mahabharata,

The summary of movie: Dispute between cousins (for power) lead to ugly war, where state and royal family getting split between themselves. Survival of the smartest.
Notable incidents: Karna’s (Ajay) illegitimate birth to Kunti, who is mother for Pandavas (Arjun, Ranbir). Dalit family adopting Karna after retrieving from river Ganga, Kunti approaching Karna on behalf of Pandava’s (without Pandava knowledge). Karna rejecting this offer quoting friendship with Kauravas, constant support from Krishna to Arjuna including one minute Bhagavad-Gita on final stages of war, bullet proof car being symbolic to Kavach.
Characteristics of characters: Arjuna’s ability to win (hearts of) women, sharing Draupadi with brothers (singular here) on Kunti’s approval, Krishna’s cunningness, Karna’s friendship, Duryodhan’s rage, bedridden Dhrutarastra.

It’s very natural that a person has affection over me, myself and mine ( ours ). For example, Compare to all culture in the world mine is the best. No matter how illogical and arrogant is the argument, every person has a word to say about mine/ours. Most of them need not have relevance to the present at all and also evidence of which is buried thousands of years ago.

The discussion can be, which race is better ? Who had better civilization ? Which country had a better history ( forget the presence or future ) ? Which religion is better ? Whose god is better ? Etc. etc. Come to India . We have some more matters to taken care in addition. Is north India is better or south ? Which language s better (usually this is Tamil –

Hindi argument in internet). Which state is better? Religion and race, who’s is better? Which caste? Which sub caste? Which class? Which faith? Which god? Boy..!! You ask for it. Its there!

One of the topics I was interested in learning was AIT (Aryan invasion theory). Its Almost 100 years, since they proposed theory of AIT. Still there is lot to talk about it and lot to discover also. Fight is between the theories “Aryans actually original inhabitants of India” or “came from outside”. Originally AIT stated by German scholar max Muller, later opposed furiously by one group and opposed by another. Every one wants to prove they are the original forefathers of great India. There was an online book about AIT defining completely different story, title is Bible of Aryan Invasions ( update: the site is banned in india, try these links : light, sabha. If one has no idea about what Indian races and history, will completely get miss-lead by this theory. The book is highly confused between history and mythology. I completely read the book twice, and the summary is “every foreigner came to India since 2000 BC is Aryan, every war happened in India is Aryan – Dravidian”. If given time author world have proved the meteoroids hit in Jurassic age were also Aryan ones. The book is written more with outburst and less with common sense.The author classifies invasions with chronological order. There are around 20 Aryan invasions, starting from rig Vedic Aryan invasion to republic
India the first six of them are based on Veda , purana and Mahabharata

Rig Vedic Aryan Invasion (1500 BC)
Second Aryan Invasion (1400 BC)
The Krishnaite (Third) Aryan Invasion (1200 BC)
Mahabharata Aryan Invasion (900-800 BC)
Fifth (Solar) Aryan Invasion (800 BC)
Ramaite Aryan Invasion & Dravidian Holocaust (600 BC)

The book proposes a historic event(s) with reference of mythology and stories. Nobody yet proved great wars of Ramayana and Mahabharata were real. Most of the things described in these epics are imaginary. The heroes and bad guys in both possess powers and capacities that a normal human being can’t imagine at all. Now can this kind of scriptures be proof of an event happened on human race?

If at all they are considered to be true, and historic, the chronology in which they are presented is completely wrong. Ramaite Aryan Invasion is projected later than The Krishnaite Aryan Invasion. Both history (if they are true) and mythology says otherwise. Now with this kind of messing up, how to believe chronology of rest of them. Some more “truths” described:

“Krishna destroyed the surviving traces of the Indus Valley civilization, abducting and raping 16000 women (low-caste `gopis’) of the races he exterminated“.

Krishna himself was a Sheppard, a Gopal or dada (if he considers as low-caste) and gopi’s are his friends. This is well known fact for one who knows Krishna. Now does The Krishnaite Aryan Invasion make sense? “The revolt by the non-Aryans and mixed races led to the terrible Mahabharatan War between the Aryan Pandavas on one side and the mixed race Kauravas and black aboriginals on the other” Continue reading “Book : Bible of Aryan Invasion” →