Don't fret too much about these cardboard cutout kings and queens and that disgusting Nand. He gave me the creeps. I was so put off by all the cavorting on the royal bed that the Shiva stotra completely escaped me. To use it for that scene was pure blasphemy!😡
I think things will improve by the end of the week; they surely cannot get any worse!😉 Two of the cardboard cutouts will be bumped off, the barber will be wrapped up in gilt and fake silk and will thus look less disgusting, and Mura will do a bunk from that palace. What I am waiting for is Rajat's entry.
No, no, my dear, please do not accuse these CVs of a penchant for Shakespearian flourishes! But then, any such speech has to be pitched right for its audience, the aam praja, and it cannot be other than simply and very strongly worded. And there is nothing stronger than the concept of the mother for an Indian audience. We are not like the Germans, who click their heels and salute the Vaterland. But I was initially taken aback by the speeches per se, not able to understand the why of it all, till I realised that it was for young Chandragupta doing an Abhimanyu.
As for the concept of a Bharatvarsh extending from the Himalayas to Kanyakumari, my dear, it is not in the least of recent origin.
It was inextricably linked with the concept of the Chakravartin Samrat over the whole subcontinent, which is what King Suddhodana hoped that Siddartha Gautama would become. So it was there even 3 centuries before Chandragupta and this was what inspired Chanakya.
This apart, the cultural perception of a subcontinental identity was ever present, totally separate from political identity or political loyalties, since well before the Christian era.
The cement for this was Hinduism, its pilgrimage centres, its itinerant scholars, its gurukuls, its libraries in Nalanda and Takshashila and elsewhere, its holy men. Devotees of Lord Rama in South India did not see him as North Indian. And Adi Shankaracharya walked from Kerala to Kedarnath preaching Advaita all the way; nowhere was he seen as a strange south Indian. Nor was Mahadev, with his abode in the far, far north, seen as a North Indian deity to be treated with circumspection.
You must have read of the ancient dynasties of South India, dating since well before the advent of the Christian era, and you know that they too had a holistic concept of India. The Pallava emperors of the 7th century AD were fully aware of Ashoka the Great, and of their contemporaries, the Chalukyan emperor in the middle of the subcontinent and Harsha of Kanauj in the North.
This was not nationalism in the current sense, it was a shared sense of identity as residents of Bharatvarsha.
But there was also, already extant, the concept of a political empire spanning the whole subcontinent. It was to the credit of Chanakya and Chandragupta that they managed to weld all the assorted kingdoms and republics and principalities into a united Mauryan empire, by means both hard and soft. But it hardly lasted for 50 years after Ashoka's death. My own conviction is that it collapsed because the military and intelligence underpinning that is vital for any state was allowed to wither away once Ashoka adopted ahimsa as his motto for actual govemance. But of course no one ever mentions that!
Shyamala Aunty
Originally posted by: shailusri1983
Aunty at last caught up with the episode. Your analysis was very interesting and also riveting to read than the entire episode. If ever there was an eye closer and eye sore as a first episode, this one merited to take that title.
The script of the voice over could have been done in much better fashion instead of driving home the point that this is another JA 2 waiting in the wings. Poor Chandroo damned even before he gets the chance to be born to a Fate similar to Jodha's Jalal!
I slept through the entire yawn and snore worthy romance between Chottey Chandroo's parents. I bet that's why he decided to interrupt it by making his presence felt through that kick.
Then comes the Nand Kishore Peeping Tom bit at Mura leaving a very bad taste in the mouth.
I don't know how others felt about the speeches by the kings. They were definitely trying to emulate a Shakespearean Brutus and Mark Anthony and ended up being purely jingoistic!
Avantika, what can I say about her? Her intellect and brains probably never grew above her knees. Taste bhi koi cheez hoti hai! Kya use Nand Baba hi mile romance karne ko? The most outrageous bit for me in the entire episode was the BGM they gave during the Navantika hug. These two were hugging in a blah manner and a beautiful Shiva stotra was running in the background.
There was one thing which was consistent and beautiful throughout the episode. That was the magnificent sets. Mr Art Director please take a bow! Your work stood out throughout the entire episode!
PS: I really fail to understand this concept of Bharath as motherland! As far as I know, this feeling of all of us being one nation or state is recent. Patriotism in those times was very localized. Our ancestors of those times would have hardly visualized themselves as belonging to the same motherland. Feelings of nationalism were divided more along religious, linguistic lines or the individual states themselves.
The war cries these states used like 'Har Har Mahadev', 'Vazhga Chola Nadu', 'Vazga thamizagam', 'Jai bhavani', etc are a testimony to this attitude. I hardly know if they saw themselves as Indians or a single unified entity. That is why we regard Chanakya and Chandragupt for being truly great because they rose beyond these divisive tendencies and visualized a unified welfare state comprising the entire Indian subcontinent.
Cricket
