vidamban.vip/@Arjun

It is an open secret that the ancient India was a technologically advanced country, and that most of the “modern” inventions first took place in India.

That belief was further strengthened recently, when the archeologists at The Aerie Insitute found some old “writings” buried near Delhi. Believed to be from Mahabharat period, the stone slabs, when translated, revealed a veritable treasure of information.

The writings on the stone slab are in the form of short messages, attributed to multiple famous personalities. After extensive research, we have come to believe that this was the ancient form of the process we today know as micro-blogging, maintained by antaryami sages (the oldest form of internet) from across the subcontinent.

The evidence so far (most of the messages are by royalty or powerful hrishis) suggests that the rich and famous would have some kind of assistant with them who would convey their thoughts to the main “nodes” in the communication network.

But more about this extraordinary discovery later. First, let us show you a sample of the entries by Arjun, the most famous of Pandav brothers. (The entries are translated and converted for familiarity. For those who don’t recognize it, it’s a LIFO stack, first entry is the latest one, the last one is the first)

@Vidur Yes, we are in Varanavat for the festival. Had fun, going to sleep now. This place smells...

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@Yudhishthir Congrats bro! Remember, uneasy lies the head that wears the crown. And heavy lies the head that drinks too much sura.

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The entries about the famous Weapons Competition held at the Hastinapur throw a fascinating light on this Little Champion’s thoughts.

Ouch, that gotta hurt. RT @Bhim hehe, Karna the warrior is actually Karna the charioteer. He is supposed to handle horses, not bows and arrows.

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Who's that guy challenging me? Is he completely out of his mind.

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Yes. Knew I was going to win this thing. Thanks @Yudhisthir @Bhim @Nakul @Sahadev @Bhishma @Vidur @Drona @Krupa for your wishes.

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At the weapons competition. This thing is going to be fun.

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The meeting of the cousins with Dronacharya and the subsequent events come to life in this stone.

@Ashwatthama I am your father's favourite student, not you. Them's the shakes.

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Can't believe what that guy did. Can't believe grandpa Bhishma knows him. Can't believe he is going to teach us.

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And there goes our entire play time at the bottom of the well. Who's going to bring that ball up now?

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Not to mention, the young Arjun gives us a rare glimpse into the childhood of Kaurav and Pandav princes.

Didn't know you had so much imagination. RT @Bhim Found myself bound at the bottom of river. Fought some nagas. Partied with them.

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@Bhim Where are you? Picnics are not just for eating and sleeping. For that matter, neither is the whole life...

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100 cousins? And we have just one uncle. :O

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In Hastinapur. This city is HUGE. Can't believe I am a Prince. And have got a BIG family.

The messages on stone pellets stop at this point, though given what happened afterwards, it is understandable.

We will continue to bring you the news of this extraordinary find. There’s a lot more where this came from. So stay tuned. Till the next time…

 

- The Great Eagle Has Spoken

Previously from Aerie Institute: Career advice, movie reviews for people in fast-lane, advice about Love, PSAs about Non Issue Syndrome and Non-veg

Kweshchan Hamare Mahabharat Ke

You may have noticed (please say you did) that I have been missing from this blog for some time now. And you may have thought that I may have been a victim to another bout of writer's block. Well, you are right.

And since, try as I might, I cannot find any topics for making up a new post, I decided to fall back on the tried and tested method: I went back and saw some recent episodes of "Kahani Hamare Mahabharat Ki".

What can I say? It worked like a charm. Or rather, I came out with enough questions to cobble together into a post. Like:

Say you are an interior decorator tasked to decorate the interior of a palace for a blind couple. How sadistic you have to be, to place a huge couch right in the middle of the room, knowing something like this is bound to happen?

Or this one:

Say your brother is back from fighting a battle (or rather, 18th one) with a man (whom you incidentally love). How desperately in love (or is it, lurrrve) you have to be, to immediately think that the "good news" your brother brings with him is about your marriage to this man, a.k.a. his mortal enemy?

Incidentally, I always thought of Rukmini as a strong-willed woman, what with her being unconventional enough to write a letter to a man she has never met to come and marry her. Plus, she is supposed to be the favourite wife of a man like Krishna. Then why does the Rukmini I see here is permanently in glycerin-locked-and-loaded mode?

In Mahabharat times, where could you get a daasi who refers to a Princess as tum? How very socialist of her...

And wouldn't it be, I guess "better" is the word here, to show Krishna overpowering Vidarbha soldiers his prowess in fighting, instead of "freezing" them? And, wouldn't a cunning warrior like Krishna go in the heart of enemy territory completely armed? Why should he "pluck" a sword out of thin air to fight?
I guess that's enough questions for today.


In short, what I am saying here is, be back soon...

- The Great Eagle Has Spoken

Are you kidding me?

Statutory Warning: This is going to be complete rant. If you don't want to get into a royal funk, you can skip to the photos at the end.

I am assuming all the people reading this love to read rants, so here goes:

Search for "Indian Government + State Funeral" on Google, and you will get two results at the top, about Ishmeet Singh and Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw. Look at the wording in those news now, and you will know who gets the honour in India. The honour is limited to "public figures", which of course includes people in government, influential leaders, and apparently, winners of reality shows*. But evidently, you have to make an exception, sorry, a "rare" exception for India's first Field Marshal, a man who won a war which created a nation, a man who is a national Hero in his own right.

Oh, and the Defence Minister was not able to make it due to "long flight followed by journey by road". You think the family of the deceased should have had more sense to have the funeral in a more accessible place, don't you?

And while we are on the topic of Indian Armed Forces, did any of you remember that 26th July was Vijay Divas? Nobody? Don't beat yourself up, neither did our Government.

And we wonder why there is a dearth of officers in Indian Army**.

On a positive note, I have changed my opinions about the new and improved Mahabharat. I didn't know it would prove to be such a veritable nail-biter, not to mention a great source of knowledge. I mean, how else would we have known that the "son" Satyavati proposes to use to continue the Kuru lineage is Ved Vyasa and not Bhishma? And in the recent episode, I was completely sure that the God had pulled a fast one on Kansa by talking about Devaki's 8th son, when it was clearly a daughter. Luckily Vasudev cleared that mystery up, otherwise the suspense was killing me.


Now that I have put you in a very bad mood, here's something to make you happy. There's something for everybody in there:





And don't worry about me. Reading Spanish novels on top of everything else does this to me sometimes. Not to mention, the database and the server refuse to start properly, thereby dashing all my hopes of getting any work done today. I will be back to my regular self soon.


- The Great Eagle Has Spoken

* I haven't heard Ishmeet Singh sing and don't know much about him or his life, and I am not commenting whether he is worthy of the honour or not.
** I am completely aware of my status as armchair critic in this matter. I know that my only connection with Armed Forces is some cousins and friends serving in different branches, and the closest I have come to the service is 2 years stint in NCC. So don't send me any comments saying "if you feel like this, you should join army". The point here is not that.

Shri Mahabharat Katha - FAQ

Given our expertise on the subject, it is not surprising that our mailbox has been flooded by people wanting to understand the Kahani of Mahabharat. So we thought it better to answer the most common questions here instead of in private e-mails.

After all, answering questions is beneficial to your fame.

In episode one, etna andhera kyoon hai bhai? (Why so dark?)

First off, it is night. Secondly, they are sitting in a courtyard, thereby diffusing the available light even further.

And they have just proved our theories about ancient lighting systems. How? If you see closely, there is hardly anybody who is wearing full reflective golden jewellery.

In episode two, why did the Mushaka kept flying through the forest? Especially when he knew that he could fly just above or just to the right and avoid the trees altogether?

Any pilot worth his tail(fin) knows that the “nape of the earth” approach means that you fly almost at treetop level, and not below the tree line.

Now by this time the Mushaka should have enough practise to judge the correct flight path for the weight on his back, and avoid flying through the same forest twice. Also, looking at how irritated Ganesh looked trying to get all the branches and leaves out of his face, this is one giant mouse who is due for a major dressing down, if not for a pink slip.

Are we about to see 360 degree shots starting from multiple angles with the name of the character said over and over again every time a new character is introduced? And even later whenever the character is on the screen? (Who knew Ganga had so many names, or rather, adjectives)

Well, at least 50% of the viewers (the men who watch saas-bahu serials balancing the numbers for the women who don't) see most of the actors as completely unrelated, and in many cases, completely opposite characters if they just change the channel. So, it is understandable that they want to make sure everybody recognizes a character from every possible angle (kind of like when you get 360 degree views of cellphones or cars on websites).

And they have to hammer name in our heads enough times for the same reason. So many times in fact, that you are almost forced to ask like Raabert, "etane saare naam? baaki log kidhar hain?" (So many names? Where are other people?)

Plus, it helps in keeping the plot of an episode within two lines. And have you forgotten the 90-10 rule of mythological serials?

Since Ganesh, being a God of Knowledge, is omniscient, why didn't he just know what Vyasa was going to tell him? In short, why didn't he write the story himself?

This particular question deserves a whole chapter in our upcoming book on Mahabharata. But in short, Vyasa is known as “Adya Kavi” (the First Poet). Given modern poetry, do you think it is so surprising that even the God of Knowledge, in his infinite wisdom, does not understand poetry?

What kind of wolf did Devavrata kill?

Aah... contrary to popular belief, it was a Himalayan Wolf, and not Gray Wolf (a species commonly found near Greece till it was endangered by the Spartans).



Keep them coming folks. We live but to serve...



- The Great Eagle Has Spoken


Technorati tags: mahabharat, indian television, tv shows

Shri Mahabharat Katha Part I

It is often said that what is not in Mahabharat is not worth knowing. In short, Mahabharat contains all the knowledge. And I am not talking about just the wisdom contained in Bhagvadgeeta, or the talks on politics, social life and religion between many of the extremely knowledgeable characters here. Neither am I talking about the endless plots, subplots, conspiracies, relationships and other things which would give the best soap operas of our times a run for their money.

What I am talking about is that every single time you start reading this story of Bharat, you find yourself with a new understanding of those times and a new knowledge of people and how they functioned then.

It is to spread that knowledge amongst the masses that we have started this new series, a collection of teachings the Mahabharat story provides us. After all, fame increases by spreading knowledge¹.

The series will contain some dramatic insights in the life of people of ancient Bharat, as well as carefully researched thoughts on how this tome of endless knowledge can be used to improve the standards of our lives today.

Part I: How they achieved Enlightenment?

Just as an example, we all have seen the palaces and houses of those times. But has anybody stopped to think about what we saw²? Those houses were often full of rooms without proper-sized windows (visualize any throne room in any palace), and yet they would always be full of enough light to shame today’s 100-watters and tube-lights. Now, we are not amongst those people who believe that our ancestors had invented everything, including electricity. There is a much simpler and much more elegant solution which they had found out.

And what is that solution? Just visualize any king, noble or even simple soldier from those times. Now answer me this. How much lumens of light will be reflected into a room when (say) 50 people, each covered with 75% of their body-area with highly reflective metals like gold, stand at strategic positions around one candle³? Now substitute that candle with a brace of torches, or a candelabra, and you should get some serious lighting in any room of any size.

Told you, much simpler, environment-friendly and visually pleasing at the same time. Our ancestors were a smart lot.

Don’t believe us? Perhaps you will believe us when the idea is copied by the West and comes back to us from them. Oh wait, they already did it. Remember the scene from “The Mummy” where they reflect a single ray of sunlight with a mirror to light the entire (cavernous) room?

That’s all for today. And till the next time, here’s something for you to consider: Cheese must be an ingredient in Draupadi’s “Akshaya Patra”. How many times have we seen a pizza slice reluctant to let go of the comfort of the circle, and the resultant endless strings of cheese like the hands of two lovers from Bollywood cinema being dragged apart by their “pyar ke dushman” parents?


Coming up next: Measuring time in ancient times


- The Great Eagle Has Spoken

Footnotes:
1. Before you start shooting e-mails correcting me, that is the correct proverb for the Kaliyug.
2. Hint: nobody before us did.
3. Did you expect the answer here? We are not going to do all the hard-work here, people.