Advani talks about wounded Bhishma Pitamah on a day of Modi's elevation

L K Advani today made a reference to a wounded Bhishma Pitamah lying on a bed of arrows in a scene in Mahabharata after the sulking BJP veteran citing ill-health stayed away from the party executive meet that elevated Narendra Modi.

The 83-year-old party stalwart, however, made no mention of the Gujarat Chief Minister in his blog or in a video address to a religious event in Jaipur.

The reference to Mahabharata epic--which is often interpreted metaphorically--was made by Advani in his blog on a day when Modi was anointed as Chief of BJP's Election Campaign Committee.

In his video address for the Jaipur event, Advani broke his silence on his ill-health that triggered speculation on his perceived opposition to Modi's appointment. He was due to have attended the event.

Advani, who missed the Goa meet for the first time in his entire political career, said he was having "stomach upset" for the last three days and therefore could not participate in the deliberations.

In his blog, he first praises a sandalwood carving of Lord Krishna's Vishwaroop avatar, which he says also has a carving of "Bhishma Pitamah on his bed of arrows, sermonizing to the Pandavas".

Advani was referring to a "remarkable" piece of sandalwood carving on display at his Prithviraj Road residence in Delhi in which Shri Krishna is administering Geetagnyan to Arjuna at Kurukshetra, and in that process giving him a darshan of His Vishwaroop.

"What is even more significant about this carving is the fact that the artist, hailing from Chikmangloor (Karnataka), has depicted on the back side of this excellent Vishwaroop carving not only several other scenes from the Mahabharata, like Draupadi Cheer Haran, and Bhishma Pitamah on his bed of arrows, sermonizing to the Pandavas, but also all the Dashavataras, from Matsyavatara and Kurmavatara to Krishna and Kalki," he said.

Advani also wrote about seeing Kamal Haasan's film Vishwaroopam (in Tamil) and Vishwaroop (in Hindi) on June 3 after he had expressed a desire to the actor-cum-diretor following a controversy over its screening.

The BJP veteran said he had recounted to Haasan an anecdote he had heard during his school days in Karachi.

"The story is about a meeting Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini had during the Second World War, in which Hitler tells the Italian Supremo that the sins committed by the two of them would prove very costly for them after death," he said.