I don't belong to the time I live in, in a way. It became a little evident to the people around me when I choose to sit and watch the Mahabharata and Ramayana.
Not the modern, dramatic cringey adaptation of 2015. The one Iam talking about is the BR Chopra Mahabharata from 1988 and the Ramanand Sagar Ramayana that must be around 1980. Mum and her brother used to watch it as kids in dhoordharshan in the 80's. But in 2008 I stumbled upon a CD pouch that had all the CDs of it. Back then, my dad was a tech geek and an overspoilt rich brat, who had bought three laptops. I took one all for myself and this little journey began.
Something incomprehensible about the complex stories captured me. The stories we're not complex because the author wanted it to be, but the very core of Mahabharata is the emotional complexity. The extent of my emotional capabilities and intensity must have been deeply influenced by that. What story would give you tales about men choosing to fight despite the need for peace. What would give you the tale of two helpless mothers seeing their sons fight to death, unable to bless them with victory. The tale of a grandfather having to fight his grandsons because he had the illusion of being bound to his personal Dharma. The tale of a brother, who was suppressed insulted and used all his life faces his mother using him again to save her son's life. Poor woman, she really loved her son. But to say of the human mind?. Then the tale of a man who had to kill his grandfather and his teacher. A woman who had to go through utter humiliation but was going to let it all go because she didn't want her son's to die, but choosing to fight for the sake of greater good even if it meant that she would be doomed. These are not just tales but complex emotional upheavals. The summary might look simple but is there anybody who can stand being through any of this? Maybe emotionally complex mentally taxing stories are what we need in the modern age where everything has evolved. I think every story is one way or another a derivation for this huge original tale. What doesn't it have really?. How can someone stupid as me could expect her work to contain everything when it's just impossible.
And what to say of Nithish Bhardwaj, the guy who played Lord Krishna? I was simply mesmerized. The Bhishma and Krishna of that Mahabharata made justice to the tale. But the one that they telecast on Vijay TV (a local shitty entertainment) makes me wanna puke with it's exaggerated emotions and negation of the pain. And my grandma and Aunt watch it for a couple hours. They were supposed to watch the old and me the new, but everything is inversed. Ah, welcome to inversion (I cringe at myself again, so you don't have to)
With Ramayana it was the loyalty of a brother and a wife that could have made me indulge. Back then Rama felt like an ideal man, balanced. But now when I watch it back I really think he was daft.
All this apart, the music in them. They are wah! Because there is nothing that can come close to their title tracks. With the old Mahabharata, there are thousands of songs, each of it that I love so much. But especially there is one song when Krishna goes to Rukmani in Vidarbha. I still keep searching for it in youtube and I'll keep searching.
My father and me had most of our fights because I was watching these 'ancient slow music god loving religious' shows as he called it. Well, he had a collection of movies like the matrix and inception that he made me watch. Not that I didn't like them, I loved them. But I was, for that period of time captured by the emotional complexity because it somehow mirrored something in me.
Not a bit of it was religious to me. It was a good story and music. That was all. This was something I was so terrified of telling anyone because I know what comes after this: judgement. It's easy to judge someone who watched these and loved these as a mythological, religious, sappy person.
Just listening to the OST was enough for me to shed a few tears. Could be nostalgia of the long lost or better the long forgotten painful times of my life. It could be because I miss the time or I wish that time never happened to me? I'll never know. It's just like how I plunged into Harry Potter around the same time because reality was too painful. Harry Potter's Hedwig's theme does the same to me. Tears.
But my relationship with the Mahabharata and Ramayana will always remain mine and incomprehensible by anyone else. Such is my curse.
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