Wow. Quite a debate going on here! The show hasn't even begun yet, but Karna Vs Arjun debates already have!
This reminds me of a young boy I knew once from Facebook pages. He was a huge fan of Mahabharata. And like most other fans of his favourite Hero, he participated in debates and discussions on Facebook and everywhere, abusing the opposing characters and their fans. He fought day in and day out, wasting away his time on social media with all his heart and soul.
What people around him didn't know is, he had some personal problems. He had gone through similar issues that his favourite Hero had gone through. So, in his Hero - or the perceived image of the Hero he had in his mind, the boy saw a reflection of his self. So, all throughout Star Plus' serial Mahabharata and Suryaputra Karn days, he fought for his Hero, because he felt that by fighting for Him, he was fighting against his own personal problems.
Around this time, he began to read KMG and BORI Critical Edition. Earlier he had fought with his opponents on Facebook with selective knowledge here and there. But now, he seriously began to read both versions. But he did not expect what was to come. And his heart broke.
He realized that his Hero was not as righteous, as heroic in KMG and BORI as he had always believed him to be, thanks to TV shows. He read KMG and re-read, and realized his Hero is worse than the other characters he had been hating all along! How could this be! He checked BORI, and same thing there as well!
But our boy here was a Sakt Launda. He would not give up on his Hero so easily. He has been worshipping him since so long with pure devotion, and spending so much time, trying to prove Him as the greatest. Now, will he accept defeat so easily? No. He ran around helplessly trying to read about his Hero from some other versions - Gita Press' Hindi version, etc. Still, same result.
What to do now? Sakt Launda was not going to give up so easily. So, he invented an ingenious method. If Vyasa' Mahabharata does not show his Hero the way he wants his Hero to be, then HE will write his own Mahabharata and re-sketch his Hero, and share that with as many people as possible. While his stupid peers were busy abusing characters on social media, Sakt Launda began to work on his plan and created accounts and pages.
With a few loyal friends by his side, he began to write down his own Mahabharata. He dismissed everyone from Vyasa to Vaisampayana to Sanjay biased and liars, and began to publish his own stories. He carefully misquoted KMG and BORI with selective passages to project the image of his Hero the way he wanted to project. He dismissed everything he didn't like as "interpolation". He began to pull down other characters to prove his Hero was the best.
He realized misquoting KMG is difficult as one can always cross-check online. So, he began to misquote from BORI's English translation by Bibek Debroy, which is not found online. So, verifying from BORI is difficult. Along with it, he posted selective screenshots from Sanskrit BORI bcoz he knew, very few would be able to read and understand Sanskrit.
In a few months, he gathered thousands of followers. Bcoz, his Hero was not his alone. He was a Hero of thousands of others who have gone through similar ordeal. Sakt Launda knew this, and played carefully along with sentiments of those who relate to Hero. He now began to create multiple accounts and circulate his own theories as "authentic Mahabharata". On multiple platforms he was banned, but still nothing could reduce his zeal to prove his Hero is the best.
After a few months, when his efforts began to show results, Sakt Launda felt a sense of an achievement. He blinded his own conscience from the truth depicted in KMG and BORI, and began to condition his mind to believe in his own false theories. He soon acquired a few puppet fangirls who hailed him as "Mahabharata expert bhaiyya". These young, naive girls have never read full KMG and BORI without any influence. So, they believed blindly what their Bhaiyya said. They saw the story through the exact prism that their Bhaiyya showed. They blindly copy-pasted the posts from their Bhaiyya's fanpages everywhere, and claimed to have read every version of Mahabharata!
That Sakt Launda was my son's friend. They had met online on one of these fanpages. I met him too, since both me and my son are Mahabharata lovers. Thankfully, my son does not mingle with him anymore. Initially, I felt bad for the kid, he was only 21 or 22. I asked my kid to help him out. The boy is only wasting his time doing all his fanboying. But after a point, I realized, troubled minds cannot be cured so easily. I guess, this is Kaliyug indeed. People no longer read Mahabharata for Mahabharata, or to feel the beauty of the master storyteller. Now, people read only to argue and win debates online.
Sorry for the long post...😭 but seeing the corrosive discussion in the few pages, I was suddenly reminded of that friend of my son's. I hope he is mentally cured now.
Edited by pd_am - 6 years ago
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