~~ I am Time ~~Main Samay Hoon~~ Blog-Week-Athon # Post 6

Disclaimer - Before you start, one small clarification - This is just a book review, nothing more, nothing less :)

So, what are your earliest memories of the great Indian Epic, The Mahabharata?  For me, it is that of watching it on Doordarshan every Sunday – without a finer understanding of what exactly was happening (I was a small kid then)- yet loving that mysterious voice who started the episode with “Main Samay Hoon” (I am Time), loving & singing along with the title  song, being awestruck at the splendor, being scared for the Pandavas during the wars, waiting with bated breath to see how the opposition would deal the arrows shot towards them which eventually turned into vile serpents, fire balls & various other creative things when it reached the skies etc. etc. – basically loving the entire show as it was one of its kind those days.  It was such a dreadful empty feeling for many of us, when the show finally ended!  

I was again introduced to it a few years later when my brother, on the day of his sacred thread ceremony, was gifted 2 books by one thoughtful relative  – The Ramayana & The Mahabharata, by R.K Narayan (Though it was a gift for my brother, I don’t think he ever got to read it :P ).. ….These books were/are supposed to be a shortened version of the Epics & yet having read it multiple times, I can safely claim, that both the books did full justice in capturing the entire essence of both the works! The fact that I still have these books should say it all!

After that, I again re-lived my childhood experience of watching this great Epic on TV, this year!  Though I couldn't follow it on a daily basis, I still loved every aspect of whatever I could watch.

So, why this post, you may ask! Well, I had accepted to take up a Book Reading Challenge at the start of this year! Per the challenge, we were supposed to read at minimum 1 book & maximum of 2 books in particular categories. One of the category was to read something from the historical genre & My pick was Bhima: Lone Warrior by M.T. Vasudevan Nair (originally Randamoozham in Malayalam translated into English by Gita Krishnankutty) for the first category. I was inspired to pick this book as the original blog post which initiated this challenge mentioned it & to add to it, I figured that reading it along with the daily telecast of the Epic would make it more interesting (though I started reading it in parallel to the TV series, I completed this book before the TV series concluded).

So, without much ado, here goes my short humble effort of reviewing a great book on THE GREAT EPIC! Well, I am not going to delve into every chapter and review for pros and cons – but just let my thoughts out on the experience of reading the book!!

As the name signifies, this is an attempt at re-telling Mahabharata, from Bhīma’s perspective.  Bhima was the second of the five Pandavas – the mighty powerful one amongst the brothers with a huge physique & an insatiable appetite for food – This is pretty much the impression we all have, don’t we? This book changed that impression for me & in actual answered a lot of curious questions that I had on few assumed considerations in the earlier versions that I had read/watched!  (Well, but on a side note, I do also remember that the answers that I got was entirely Bhima’s (author’s) perspective & there might be a different set of answers if the same is read from another’s viewpoint :) )..

The book starts with the chapter on the final journey of Pandavas to reach Heaven. Though the path requires you not to stop or retrace your steps, Bhima disregards it for his beloved wife Draupadi when she is breathing her last & rushes back to be on her side! However, all he can see in her eyes, even in those last few moments, is the disappointment that only Bhima turned up to comfort her!! She was expecting Arjuna, her beloved!  This sets the stage on what is about to come & then the flashback begins narrating Bhima’s journey throughout the Epic!  

What impressed me the most was that the book did not attempt at twisting the original Epic into entirely something else – actually there’s nothing new or modified in the entire structure of the Epic.  It’s like you always open the windows on the right side of your house & you absolutely enjoy the view. One fine day, you take your kid to the window for the first time and ask her to describe the view after she takes a look! She loves it too, She enjoys it too, but she points at a few things that you never noticed & it makes you enjoy the view even more!!! You see, same view, just different eyes!!! :)

As we read on, we find that everyone in the book is represented as normal beings with their own set of positives, anxieties & difficulties.  It helps because we can very well feel the love, the pain, the hurt, the anger, the passion, the insult, the helplessness of each without having to keep them on a pedestal…

We are taken along the journey to savor Bhima’s childhood, his love for food, his education & training, his first war victory, his archery skills, his perseverance to defeat his enemy at any cost, his first love in Hidimbi which he has to let go, his helplessness when he has conflicting thoughts on his mothers or his elder brother’s decisions etc. etc.

We also get introduced to the other side of him, a soft-hearted & helplessly-in-love Bhima who keeps pining for his unrequited love for Draupadi, till the end. The lengths that he goes to procure whatever Draupadi requests, the way he stands up first for protecting her honor at every possible instance etc. etc. just makes us (women readers) feel that our life partner should follow Bhima in this aspect atleast :) :)

We get a glimpse of the various strategies employed by several people throughout the Epic & how everywhere the consequences of these on Bhima’s life are not even given a considerable thought!  We experience Bhima’s unexpressed trauma of losing his own sons in the battle!! The whole Kurukshethra war is highlighted in Bhima’s point of view & forms a very interesting read in itself!

Well, I think I can go on and on; Most of the times, a book, if it doesn’t have a sequel, might not stimulate any curiosity to go research further! However, this one made me very much curious to actually go look out for other attempts from various perspectives. It also made me add R.K Narayan’s version again to my to-read list so I can read it afresh!

Overall, it was an interesting read. I would recommend this to anyone who has a curious mind and a passion for reading :)