Thursday, August 18, 2005

Ppppppplease

Ramayan and Mahabharat are two of the biggest epics in the world. I love reading them over and over again and naturally I have my favourite characters. In Ramayan it is Ram. In Mahabharat it is Karn. Born to an unwed princess, he was abandoned and found by a charioteer. He grows up to be an ace archer with all the knowledge of cosmic weapons. Time does a full circle and he is called names by his own brothers. Since he is not born to the warrior tribe, well no one knows about his secret, they deny him the right to compete in various competitions. So he is made a king by the rival of his brothers, who is shown to be on the wrong side of Karma. Time passes and the rivalry intensifies and a battle is inevitable. He was born with a couple of body armours that were impenetrable and his generousity was universally acclaimed. So, he is asked by the God-father of his main rival brother to give his armours, and knowing who it is and that giving it means he is no more impregnable, he gives it off. Just before the day he goes to fight, he is told by his real mother that he is in fact her son and he is really fighting his own brothers. He says that though this has weakened his resolve, he will still fight his brothers since his friend had made him one of the warrior tribe when his brothers were calling him names and when she chose to be a mute spectator all the while. He finally is killed by his rival brother when he is unarmed and his chariot gets stuck.
Well, it seems Shahrukh Khan is about to play the role of Karn in a new movie called "Mahabharat". I hope not.

8 Comments:

Blogger DCveR said...

Mahabharat. Now that is one great story! There is an old version of the movie from 1965 that I've seen a couple of times and I've read the book once.

6:07 PM  
Blogger neena maiya (guyana gyal) said...

They show the stories on tv on Sundays and [when we had a tv] we used to sit and watch, every Sunday afternoon.

Great stories, heroes, villains, good folks, bad folks, adventures, everything.

I refuse to get drawn about Shah Rukh Khan. I loooove Shah Rukh Khan. Did you ever look at his EYES? All the girls love his eyes. Envy Anoop, is a very bad thing, very, very bad :-)

Oh...Julia Roberts? For Frida? Naaaah.

3:01 AM  
Blogger Mike said...

I haven't been here in so long! Sorry!

I guess I'll have to add these to the list of books I need to read. I love reading stories in other languages. I just get a good dictionary and sit down translating for ages and ages... Ok, that's why I don't do it often. What's the original language of these? Maybe I already have the dictionary...

10:51 AM  
Blogger neena maiya (guyana gyal) said...

Viking...that's work, man. Even when I did French and Spanish Lit. at university I kinda, sorta, well, um...cheated[?] and bought the English translations to help me along hehe...

6:13 PM  
Blogger Mike said...

Ok, I did some research and found out the oldest versions are in Sanskrit... and it's HUGE. So maybe I'll leave the translation to someone else ;)

10:05 PM  
Blogger F-ftOS said...

Lol Viking, yep the original is in Sanskrit and there are many smaller versions too in English. LOL HUGE AYE? Its the biggest epic in the world.

This might be good starting point though http://www.hindunet.org/mahabharata/

GG, Shahrukh Khan... if only he stopped overacting.

1965!!!!! wow Dcver, thats really old. I hope I can get my hands on it sometime.

10:49 PM  
Blogger DCveR said...

There is this film depository in Lisbon, they have their own theater and from time to time they have old movies on scene.

12:59 AM  
Blogger Mike said...

Yeah, when I discovered that there's a team of scholars with PhD's in Sanskrit working on a translation of the original... that's about when I decided to watch the movie instead.

10:46 AM  

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