INDIAN TELEVISION & ITS OBNOXIOUS PORTRAYAL OF EPICS 

The supposed scholarly, fire brand Draupadi of Mahabharata!

 

Despite the rise of the internet, television still has immense popularity, at least in India. Television serials based on epics, historical incidents and religious scriptures has always been very popular here. 

I have a deep interest in all things ancient; so I do try to watch these shows even though I do not take it seriously.

Yesteryear shows like Ramanand Sagar's 'Ramayan' and B.R. Chopra's 'Mahabharat' has influenced and even shaped Indian citizen's views on the two Indian epics. Majority of the Indian public take these two serials as an authoritative version of the epics, sometimes even preferring the serials over the original texts! And nowadays, there has been a surge in such shows since the highly popular show 'Devon Ke Dev Mahadev', based on the stories of Shiva (Hindu God of Destruction), was aired. It completely shook up the way epic or Puranic characters are portrayed on television.

Now actors with exquisite physiques are cast in the roles of epic characters, suitably to the description in the epics. Such shows have breathtaking locations, authentic costumes, larger than life sets, spectacular computer graphics and soul-stirring music. The overall look of the shows does give the audience that epic feel. There are some rare yet mind-blowing performances as well. Yet I feel when it comes to story it does not gather much confidence.

The basic story is all twisted up badly. Characters with negative or grey shades in the epics are completely black here. Shakuni, Duryodhana, Ravana, Asuras (Hindu supernatural beings with noble or malevolent traits), Nagas (Hindu deities in serpent form) etc as a whole are tagged, demonic or demons. The so-called heroes like Pandavas, Kunti, Draupadi, Rama, etc are completely whitewashed. All the acts that could gather flack to them are removed to make them politically correct. And the sad thing is there are scores of people who believe whatever they watch on such shows. There are youngsters who take these shows for granted. There are foreign viewers who take these as an authentic portrayal of ancient "Indian culture".

In recent series on 'Mahabharat', aired on Star Plus, Duryodhana, in particular, his brothers, were all vilified. Even the noble Gandhari was not spared. Kunti or Draupadi could see, speak, hear or do no ills! Kunti was such an angel that she was coerced into abandoning her newborn son Karna, that too by a maid. But the epic's Kunti, coldly sacrificed her eldest son, Karna, to save her own reputation, stoops to emotionally blackmailing him so that her legitimate sons can have the posh life; poisoned 5 tribal youths and their mother without any guilty conscience and meted out the worst fate to daughter in law Draupadi by getting her married to all of her 5 sons. 

Duryodhana's beautiful friendship with Karna is turned into a master-slave scenario. This was probably done to completely whitewash Karna who originally had some grey shades in Mahabharata. I am saying this despite being an ardent admirer of Karna. I do not know if there is another complex character like him. He was a hero; but he rose to that level after many grave insults, mistakes and endless trials. That is what makes him fascinating. But according to these serial makers, he was a wimp who cried endlessly, shrivelled into a wallflower at the mere mention of an immoral act and could not stand up against bullying. 

In the seminal text, Dhritarashtra refers to Karna as 'acidic tongued'!

Again Starplus re-asserts that Pandavas knew no sins, committed no errors but was duped of their 'rights' by the evil Kuru sect! The Star Plus' 'Mahabharat' was mocked as 'Arjunalore' or 'Pandavalore', widely on social media. 

I cringed at the corny picturization of Pandavas, Arjuna in particular. All good things were done by him; all decisions are taken by him, despite being the third brother. And in ancient India, this amounted to sacrilege as it was considered a sin to disobey one's elders. In the original text, Bheema was the only one who rebelled (that too rarely) against their elder brother Yudhisthira's moronic and sadistic decisions. Draupadi, despite being intimidating women, never went against her mothers-in-law, Kunti and Gandhari. Yet in the serial, Draupadi kicks out both Kunti and Gandhari as she is an 'Empress' (empress of which empire will be my question) and needed 'lone time'! If we go by the serial version, Shakuni suffered from severe dental problems as well as a limp to the extent where he could not walk properly. Yet the Shakuni of the epic is described as 'lotus-eyed' by Vyasa and was a great fighter. And Drupad, father of Draupadi, hated his daughter so much that he asked for severe agony for her, from the gods. Now the geniuses of the serials created this vicious story about Drupad so that they can put all the crimes committed done by her husbands on her father. In this way, the serial creatives' mission of whitewashing Pandavas will be successful. The show's creative heads had a strange and unexplainable hatred towards Ashwathama as well. The show is filled with such ludicrous "creations".

"Devon Ke Dev Mahadev" despite being best out of these recent shows, too aired some absolute horror scenes. Parvathi, despite being the most powerful goddess of the Indian Pantheon, has an extreme addiction to gold. When Shiva asks her to renounce the most precious thing to her she removes all her gold and diamond ornaments! Only thing Parvathi can cook, despite being Annapoorneshwari, is Payasam, a type of dessert. Sati is shown as a clueless yet foul-mouthed 4th wave feminist; after all, she is the daughter of an arrogant father, Daksha so she has to behave like him! In the serial, Sati goes to the Yagna (ritual sacrifice) arranged by her father not to question the insult meted out to her dear husband Shiva but to have fun there. She also calls Shiva, the ultimate renouncer, as harbouring hatred against Daksha, all due to his arrogance of being a God!

Such shows instead of propagating knowledge are doing more harm than any good. Half knowledge is dangerous yet that is the most popular thing now. 

I have seen people debating on comment sections of articles based on epics by basing all their arguments on the fictitious accounts shown in these television serials. This will leave a generation believing false stories as truth. But the internet also holds tremendous power as translations of these epics is easily available as well. I wrote this because I have seen countless people believing these misrepresentations as absolute truths. My humble suggestion would be to access the translations of the literary works online rather than depending these faulty to the core television representations.

When it comes to the epics and Puranas, I try not to see Krishna or Rama as gods but as humans as they are in their human forms. Their actions are not above reproach at times. I believe epics serve as a sort of cautionary tales...instead of justifying the wrong acts even by gods, we should learn to accept that it was wrong and learn from it. That is the whole point of these texts.

In 'Shiva Purana' (ancient encyclopedic literature dedicated to Shiva), Mahadeva cuts off Ganesha's head in a fit of anger but he immediately rectifies it as he knew he made a mistake. Me, despite being an ardent Shiva devotee, won't accept it as some sort of game but as a mistake. Brahma lusts after both his daughter Saraswathi as well as granddaughter Sati and is punished by Shiva. This is the beauty of Hinduism; not even gods are above reproach. But what the TV serials are doing or is trying to do is make excuses for these mistakes by creating ludicrous scenarios, meaning they are missing the entire point.

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Draupadi: - arthat mujhe ek.. Ek rakshas ne jeeta he