The Caravan, which is like an oasis in the desert called long-form writing in India, is so meticulous it rarely gets things wrong. However, its commentary on the new Mahabharat, currently running on STAR Plus, was a little off. Called "Epic Fail", the opinion piece ran in the "Perspectives" section of the June 2014 issue. Writing about the vastraharan (disrobing) scene, the writer, Poorva Rajaram, felt the makers of the show had gone too far in trying to contemporise the epic. "The current show might give us the post-'Nirbhaya' Mahabharat, with vaguely feminist characters whose dignity is not to be trifled with," she said.
Even on its own merit, the argument makes little sense. The world over, epics are given a contemporary spin. If reports are to be believed, Warner Brothers is planning a futuristic retelling of the Odyssey set in space. Why only epics - today's Sherlock is a BlackBerry-wielding detective. Be that as it may, Ms Rajaram's argument bases itself on a telling of the Mahabharata where feminist characters are not the norm. But, in fact, even in traditional tellings of the epic, one comes across a different interpretation.
It is Sita, the long-suffering wife of Ram, who has to undergo an "agni pariksha" (trial by stepping into fire) to prove her chastity after she is rescued from Ravan. When a washerman accuses her of defilement, Ram is shown to be a wuss and make his wife undergo a suffering that is hailed as the lot of the ideal Indian woman. Draupadi, on the other hand, the feisty princess who demands vengeance from her husbands for letting an unspeakable crime be perpetrated on her, is often reviled as the cause of the war. Sita as a name is common in India. But when have you heard of a Draupadi? If that is not a feminist telling, what is?
(Comparing the lives of Sita and Draupadi in Yuganta, Iravati Karve speaks of the difference in the suffering wrought on the two leading women of India's great epics. She writes: "The account of Sita's suffering should have been in the kavya tradition: suspicion of the heroine, the clearing of her name, and finally, reconciliation - the structure exemplified in Kalidasa's Shakuntalam … Draupadi's life has nothing comparable to this event. Her sorrows, her humiliations are realistic; they are not merely brought in to embellish the poetry; and their resolution takes place on the level of the real world.")
In light of this, it is rather strange that Ms Rajaram chose to fault the current screen version for its feminist undertones. If anything, the Draupadi that emerges from the Mahabharata playing on the screen is not the firebrand, vengeance-seeking shrew we have been led to believe, but a woman who is so shocked by the tale of death and destruction the war leaves in its wake that she is prepared to forgive and move on.
In the episode telecast on July 23, 2014, Arjun and Draupadi are discussing what will happen on the battlefield the next day. He is preparing Draupadi to be ready to visit the battlefield after sunset, for it is then that Bhima would want her to wash her hair in Dushyasan's blood. Hearing this, Draupadi's eyes gleam with fear and she asks Arjun if, in trying to win over the enemy, the Pandavas are not dipping into the same depraved pool as the Kauravas?
Arjun launches into a sermon that pleasingly deflects from the minutiae of the war in favour of why, in this special case, it is important to teach a lesson. "The coming age of Kalyug," he says, "will be one of great wickedness. Not a day will pass when women will not feel unsafe and preyed upon. Men will touch new depths of degeneracy. Therefore, it is important to let the world know what befalls a man who plays with the dignity of the woman." The episode also makes clear that it is at Bhima's prodding that Draupadi agrees to wash her hair in Dushyasan's blood - a prospect she is otherwise, naturally, wary of.
I find these little detours away from the Machiavellian strategies of war rather welcome. When indeed not a day passes without some or the other atrocity against women making the news, it is nothing if not heartwarming to see the makers of the serial give an "epic" spin to the reality on the ground. True, the current Mahabharat has tonnes of avoidable blood and gore. (Abhimanyu's killing was especially disturbing.) But given its high TRPs, it is no bad thing if young boys and girls get a lesson in women's rights couched in the sacred realm of our epics. Who knows what silent revolutions that might engender?
Disclaimer: These are personal views of the writer. They do not necessarily reflect the opinion of www.business-standard.com or the Business Standard newspaper
