| Stretching imagination |
| Veena Pradeep |
Trisha Das has used her imagination well to leverage this quality of the great epic. The Mahabharata Re-imagined is a collection of scenes from the epic, as the sub-head says.
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 THE MAHABHARAT
RE-IMAGINED
Trisha Das
Rupa & Co, 2009,
pp 115, Rs 95
The Mahabharata lends itself to as many creative interpretations as the genius of a writer will allow. That is part of its eternal appeal — to be able to look at it from various angles and gain fresh perspectives. Trisha Das has used her imagination well to leverage this quality of the great epic. The Mahabharata Re-imagined is a collection of scenes from the epic, as the sub-head says. The eight stories in the collection are dramatised incidents that the author has imagined in her head.
From serious matters (Was Draupadi secretly in love with Krishna and hoping to marry him?) to subtle details (Was the secret of Draupadi’s glowing skin the result of years of rubbing pumice stone on it?) Trisha Das lets her imagination take over from the word go. In the story Draupadi’s Initiation, Draupadi is painted as a young woman with raw emotions, rather than a princess. Her initial hope that Krishna will be hers, her subsequent disappointment at knowing that was not to be, and the gamut of emotions that overwhelm her as she waits for the one person who can string the bow, shoot the target and win her hand in marriage, is beautifully brought out.
Did Kunti insist that Draupadi marry all her sons because her words one spoken could not be taken back? Or was it because she knew all her sons desired Draupadi equally?
In the story ‘Draupadi’s Submission’, knowing that Kunti had asked that she be shared among her five sons, Draupadi beseeches Kunti to change her decision. “Do you ask that my body, worshipped by my father’s subjects, pampered since birth by my handmaidens and untouched by any man, now succumb to five men,” she asks. Kunti is unmoved by Draupadi’s howls of protests, but in the end tells her, “If I knew only Arjuna desired you, there would be no need for this. But, you are very beautiful... and it is important for me to keep my sons together.”
Did Bhishma suffer pangs of guilt for taking the Kaurava side? Did he regret his lopsided vision of dharma that gave importance to technicalities of the law while ignoring its spirit? Did he regret not being king? Trisha Das will have us believe so, in ‘Bhishma’s Admission’. “I have never told a lie, Arjuna. Not even when a small lie could have done a world of good. Is that truth?” Bhishma asks Arjuna as he lies dying on the battlefield. “I could have been King of Hastinapur, a just king. I could have ensured the kingdom went into capable hands after me. I could have been your grandfather.”
Dhritharastra, Gandhari and Kunti die in an accidental forest fire in the original epic. In Das’s Mahabharata, Gandhari helps start that fire. Was Karna sage Durvasa’s son? Was he a blue baby who is saved by his mother’s timely action only to be abandoned soon after? Though Das has taken ample liberties with these timeless stories, the ultimate effect is commendable. While most of the scenes in her book are fictional, the characters remain the same.
Lucid and easy to read, the book can be completed in one sitting. Read it for the sheer human drama that springs forth from its pages.
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