ThinkerViews – Views And Reviews Personal views and reviews for books, magazines, tv serials, movies, websites, technical stuff and more.
What do you think about Mahabharat (aka Mahabharata)? It may be a war-story to you, or it may be love-saga to you, if may be considered as clash of brother (or even titans 🙂 ) for you. A part of JaySamhita (as Jaya) – Mahabharata explores almost every aspects of the life, that each one may find a different perspective from the same. Whatever it means to you, just one thing is for sure that there is a lot to learn from the tale. If one can keep his/her mind open than he will not only get “what to do” but also “what not to do” from it. So let us consider it “a set of wisdom tales“.
| TV Serial | : |
Mahabharat
|
| Producer | : | B. R. Chopra |
| Writer/Dialogs | : | Dr. Rahi Masum Raza |
| Director | : | Ravi Chopra |
| Starring | : | Harish Bhimani (Samay (voice)), Rajesh Vivek (Maharishi Veda Vyasa), Nitish Bharadwaj (Lord Krishna), Shampa Gopikrishan (child Krishna), Kewal Shah (adolescent Krishna), Gajendra Chouhan (Yudhishthira), Sonu (young Yudhishthira), Arjun (Real name: Firoz Khan) (Arjuna), Ankur Javeri (young Arjuna), Roopa Ganguly (Draupadi), Praveen Kumar (Bhima), Sameer Chitre (Nakula), Sanjeev Chitre (Sahadeva), Razak Khan (Ghatotkacha), Paintal (Shikhandi), Arun Bakshi (Dhrishtadyumna), Mayur (Abhimanyu), Mukesh Khanna (Bhishma), Pankaj Dheer (Karna), Harendra Paintal (young Karna), Puneet Issar (Duryodhana), Vinod Kapoor (Dushasana), Kaushal Shah (young Dushasana), Gufi Paintal (Shakuni), Surendra Pal (Dronacharya), Dharmesh Tiwari (Kripacharya), Pradeep Rawat (Ashwatthama), Babbu (young Ashwatthama), Ashok Banthia (Kritavarma), Kapil Kumar (Shalya), Deep Dhillon (Jayadratha), Raj Babbar (Bharata), Ashalata (Shakuntala), Kiran Juneja (Ganga), Rishabh Shukla (Shantanu), Debashree Roy (Satyavati), Sudesh Berry (Vichitraveerya,), Vishnu Sharma (Vasudeva), Sheela Sharma (Devaki), Kshama Raj (Rohini), Ramlal Gupta (Ugrasena), Goga Kapoor (Kans), Rasik Dave (Nanda), Manju Vyas (Yashoda), Sagar Salunke (Balarama), Ajay Sinha (Akroora), Devidas (Kans’s Minister), Girija Shankar (Dhritrashtra), Renuka Israni (Gandhari), Virendra Razdan (Vidura), Tarakesh (Pandu), Nazneen (Kunti), Roma Manik (Madri), Kamlesh Maan (Sulabha), Channa Ruparel (Rukmini), Vikas Prasad (Ekalavya), Vinod Raut (Purochana), Om Katare (Adhiratha Sushen), Saroj Sharma (Radha), Varsha Usgaonkar (Uttaraa), Sameer Rajda (Uttar), Chandni Sharma (Sudeshna), Lalit Tiwari (Sanjay), Dara Singh (Hanuman), Sumeet Raghavan (Young Sudama), Chetan Hansraj (Young Balarama), Parijat (Radha), Ram Mohan (Head Priest), Rafique Mukkadam (Minister), Shivendra Mahal (Parashurama and Lord Shiva), Randhir Singh (Hidimb), Rana Jung Bahadur (Jarasandha), Karunakar Pathak (Shishupala), Sharat Saxena (Kichaka), Gopi Krishna (Chitrasena), Ayub Khan (Parikshit Abhimanyu’s son), and others… |
| Purchase Links | : | Quick Purchase Links: |
Some nice works based on Mahabharat – the epic tale:
- Jaya : an Illustrated retelling of The Mahabharata : Book Reviews
- Mahabharata 1 : Bharat Ek Khoj Hindi TV Serial : Reviews
- Mahabharata 2 : Bharat Ek Khoj Hindi TV Serial : Reviews
- News about animated movie : Mahabharata
- A set of books written in Gujarati based on The Mahabharata
Now as DevVrat (aka DevaVrat) is back, the life of King Shantanu is cheerful again! Remember “You always need someone to cherish your happiness and get support during the sadness”. One more lesson to learn here is: “Life moves ahead like a circle, nothing is permanent, if ups are there downs will be there, and if you are passing through wrong times, you will surely be presented with the good time too”. So one shouldn’t lose hope anyway.
Life is always about moving forward. DevVrat was not only wise and clever, but a very brave and skilled fighter too. He was able to single handedly stop the armies of Shalv (or Shalva) lead by crown prince of the same. A ruler have to have all these abilities.
As DevVrat is now very much eligible to be declared as the crown prince, Shantanu found it a right time to declare him so.
A very short narration after this event links to the next scene very properly.
This episode also show the custom of “hunting”. It was necessary for two reasons. On one hand the king needs to protect his citizens from the wild animals, and on the other hand, he always need to keep his warrior skills practised. The hunting scenes are filmed nicely. Though, it is clearly visible that those are two different scenes, you will not feel a need to get them integrated.
The horses of good ability are chosen wisely. As horses played very important role in ancient times, the TV Serial need it to be reflected properly. And it does it very nicely. The background score plays a very important part in setting up the mood for any scene, and we can see its impact here, clearly.
And the life moves on, in other aspects also. One happiness makes one to go for looking for the other. On the hunt itself, Shantanu once saw a fisherwoman who was running a boat to let the people travel from one end to the other. Shantanu got attracted towards her. And he hired her boat. He was so mesmerised by her the he kept travelling from one end to the other, in order to enjoy her company. Here DevVrat was started getting worried for his father.
There is another background tale about the fisherwoman – Satyavati – who was blessed with the mesmerising odour and was known as YojanGandha as well. Well, we will discuss about her background later.
The communication between Dasyaraj (Satyavati’s father) and Shantanu is nicely written. One dialog says: “Everyone possess the ability to give something, and everyone wanted to get something from the other“. There are many other punches in this entire conversation. Also the way the character of Dasyaraj is explored, is worth to note. He is polite yet firm on his decision. He was once told about the future of Satyavati in a prophecy, and he believed in it. He was ready to wait for any duration to see that prophecy converted into reality.
Character of Shatanu is explored pretty well. In addition to show his qualities as a successor of Bharat clan, he was a human being and he have his own strengths and weaknesses. Even when mesmerised and determined to get married to Satyavati, he had the senses of right and wrong. And, by living most of the life lonely, he was thirsty for love and even the material happiness including physical pleasure too. This is correct exploration human psychology and nature (first by original author, Ved Vyas).
The conversation between the charioteer of Shantanu and DevaVrat (aka DevVrat) contains simple yet powerful one liner. Charioteer have to be a confidante and not to reveal the secrets of his king, and he does it pretty well. The way DevVrat convince him about right and wrong is filmed well too.
The code of conduct is always necessary to follow for everyone. And despite of being king of Hastinapur, the way Shantanu respect Satayavati’s father’s decision and keeps a distance from her conveys the message of “only doing the right things” clearly. Also the way Dasyaraj calms her daughter and convince her that whatever is there in the future for her, it will come their way; shows the parent-child bond and respect both together.
The song with the classical touch, during the sad moments, is technically good, but not very effective for an ordinary viewer.
The height of the episode is the tremendous love shown by DevVrat towards his father. His vows or oaths are like “never before – never after” and those scenes are filmed fantastically. You cannot imagine anyone else can portray this role and this scene so convincingly like Mukesh Khanna. It is probably one of the best scenes he have acted in his entire life! Kudos to him.
Summary: One have to keep his wisdom alive when thinking from the heart.
Why? Well, the coming episodes will make it clear.
Quick Purchase Links:
If you like this article then do not forget to share it with your friends over various social networks via Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus and others. And yes, you may like to subscribe to our RSS feeds and follow us on various Social networks to get latest updates for the site to land right in your mail box. And yes, do let us know your remarks via comments below, we love to hear from you.
