Kahaani Hamaaray Mahabharat Ki

Saas-bahus on TV are now having some tough competition from Ram, Krishna and Durga! Yes, the Gods in different avatars have descended and some are on their way. Of course through mythological shows on TV! Clearly mythologies are back with a bang. They were big at one point when I was in my chaddis. Remember the frenzy when Ramanand Sagar’s Ramayana started in the late 80’s or sometime later when B R Chopra’s Mahabharata had viewers glued to their Idiot Boxes on Sundays.

Realizing the omnipresence of GOD, recently Kween of soaps "Ekta Kapoor" too has jumped on to the bandwagon and is busy with her mega project Mahabharata err its "Kahaani Hamaaray Mahabharat Ki" (opportunity to insert her lucky "K" in the title). I saw kouple of episodes and realized that my diktionary falls short of rekounting the new series. BR Chopras Mahabharata was much superior than what Ekta is offering us these days with modern technology and the moolah to spend. No doubt that Ekta has spent a good deal on the cast and crew and thanks to Manish Malhotra’s designer attire that everyone is sporting in the series. With Ekta's Mahabharat, once upon a time sari-clad Draupadi, Ganga, Kunti and Gandhari got image makover and are going the glam-way. They seem to be in stiff competition with our drama queen Ms. Rakhi Sawant by wearing the least possible piece of garments (p.s. I am not complaining). As a stand-up comedian points out- "Draupadi ne to aisi-aisi jagah tattoo banaya hai jahan purushon ka dekhna varjit hai". With bhartiya naaris stealing all the raves how can guys take a back seat? Complementing to the divas, our so-called emperors are dressed in long elegant cloaks fastened by brooches and fancy circlets. It feels as if the cast from some B-grade Roman mythology has been transported to the sets of Ekta's Saga. Like in the movie 300, everyone from the infants to oldies are sporting six packs and bulging biceps to suit their macho roles in the period drama. And hey aren’t they supposed to be Emperors, with loads of treasures to suffice for some decent jewellery (I guess adorning with too much of jewellery is middle class). All characters seems like they are clad in rags.

Apart from bizarre dressing there are many other things that would go un-noticed and make one wonder why are we watching this nonsense? If you see lord ganesha in the series, you will go Lot-Pot on the floor. His trunk looks like a hosepipe got on a sale in Big-Bazar. They should have actullay taken the cartoon ganesha from the movie "MY FRIEND GANESHA". It’s an irony that she copy pasted scenes from a commercial Hollywood movie 300. Remember the scene where young “King Leonidas” fights with a wolf in a snowstorm, the same scene has been copy pasted into the series. I wonder if Ekta was into coding earlier or was “inspired” like our dear Anu Malik. She also tried very hard to make the epic hilarious by putting some unwanted ridiculous comic scenes where you would not laugh even if you are paid for unless it’s our Sidhu Paaji. This blog is not just to criticize the efforts of Ekta but also to draw some similarities that we have with Saas-bahu Sagas. Ever thought why Ekta Kapoor chose to recreate Mahabharata of all? If we carefully examine Mahabharata have all the elements of an archetypal saas bahu sagas. It has drama, politics, back-stabbing, reincarnations, rivallary and most importantly tons of extra marital affairs and polygamy. To complement Baa in saas-bahu serials who has seen over 6-7 generations, we have Bheeshma in Mahabharata with “Ichcha Mrityu Vardaan”. Unfortunately with all the elements to get high TRP ratings and women across the country to get glued to the TV on primetime, the entire endeavor so-called Ekta's Mahabharata still remains HAHABHARAT!!