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Friends this is one point that has been endlessly flogged since the begining of CN; and not without some amount of justice as well; The Bahubali Hangover!
I do not deny the criticism. But if we are going to look for Bahubali in every scene of CN, we are never going to enjoy the series. I think the ultimate aim of all of us watching CN is because at some point there are several things with which we connect despite a number of other things going awry. I, for one, am loving the series despite all its flaws.
There was a period in my life when I literally gorged on psychoanalysts like Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Erik Erikson, structural anthropologists like Claude Levi Strauss, myth critics like Northtrop Frye, criticism on literary histories, post modernists like Derrida and his concept of deconstruction, Foucault and his theory of power politics, Lacan and his theories on the link between language and psychology etc because of certain circumstances which forced me to read them up.
If I think it worth my while, it would not be a very difficult deal to tear apart any series or any film, scene to scene, word to word, expression to expression. After doing something like this, I would hardly have any pleasure or satisfaction of having seen something worthwhile. That is what excessive analysis and trying to judge something does to a viewer. If you or I are going to behave like the master chef judges of an Indian Khichdi served up hot to us by dissecting it bit by bit, we would hardly relish it, not even the things that work.
It took so many years after independence to make a movie with the kind of production values and execution we saw in Babubali to be made. It is a movie all of us can be proud of. But aren't we unreasonable in expecting a TV series to equal it in excellence and production values? Why even the budgets are not the same!
And Bahubali was not the most original and innovative story in existence that we are accusing CN of copying and lifting from it. Bahubali creates its own fictional kingdom and fictional characters to inhabit it along with a fictional history, geography and in places its own language as well which deserves all the accolades it is getting. The film truly does have a vision of its own. But those of you who have seen it, prove me wrong if the entire set up is not Mahabharata Rebooted?
We have two warring cousins fighting for the throne, Amarendra Bahubali and Bhallala Deva, one representing the side of good, and the other representing the side of evil, just like the Pandavas and Kauravas.
AB is the son of the ruling king who is the younger brother but comes to the throne because the elder brother Vijjaladeva is physically handicapped. Isn't this like the Pandu and Dhritharashtra parallel? Vijjaladeva has a blind affection for his son, BD despite his penchant for evil, just like Dhritharashtra's love for Duryodhan.
Take the character of Katappa. Isn't he Bhishma and Karna combined; a slave to the ruling throne, the right man in the wrong side, one whose obligation and dependence on the ruling throne affects his loyalties over his personal belief system of right and wrong, good and bad. He is forever shackled to side with evil though he does not concur with their views and ideas
Rani Devasena in prison waiting for her son to rescue her, isn't she another Devaki waiting for Krishna? Devasena is a Draupadi as well because she harbors a terrible feeling of vengeance against those who made her and her family suffer, unlike Devaki who is comparatively more fore bearing towards Kamsa. Devasena even keeps on preparing the bed of funeral pyre for BD with the twigs she picks up during her free time. It is the sort of revengeful feeling Draupadi is capable of.
And the scene where Shivudu is smuggled out of the prison by Rajmata Sivagami in that pelting rain before that river in spate to that colony of tribals, aren't there definite echoes of Vasudev and baby Krishna before River Yamuna.
And now to the famous Shiv ling lifting song, isn't there a definite Krishna lifting the Govardhan Parvat hangover?
So my main point is, themes in mythology and history keep repeating. They are cyclic in nature. Why even our fashions and almanacs keep repeating after a definite set of years. Only the names and a few circumstances and situations keep changing. That is why we read history. It keeps us grounded, it tells us why we are the way we are, it gives us warning of what happened in the past to our ancestors and forewarns us what may happen in the future if we are not careful enough.
Ever heard history repeats itself. It happens all the time all around us. We often make the same mistakes our parents made and learn our lessons the hard way. Jung says that the whole of humanity shares "a universal consciousness'. We have shared memories and shared experiences. This results in shared myths or stories. Only names and few basic details differ. If you take up the myths of different cultures which share no geographical unity, they are in many occasions same at the ideological level. Take the example of the Fall of Icarus and that of Garuda's elder brother(I forget the name of this Indian mythical character), it is the same at the ideological level.
Levi Strauss says that we can break up any individual myth into a set of basic meaningful mythical units called mythemes. These mythemes or basic themes or ideas in a myth combine and recombine in different ways to form different myths. Interesting isn't it? If all this is so, where does the concept of perfect originality come in? Everything is recycled and re-presented at some point.
That was the point I was trying to make. I have nothing against Bahubali. Moreover I loved it just in the same way as I am loving CN now. If we are going to compare both at every point, CN is going to come second best leaving us with nothing but disappointment. It will just not do. We watch something to feel happy and satisfied and not to be permanently and consistently disatisfied.
I do not deny the criticism. But if we are going to look for Bahubali in every scene of CN, we are never going to enjoy the series. I think the ultimate aim of all of us watching CN is because at some point there are several things with which we connect despite a number of other things going awry. I, for one, am loving the series despite all its flaws.
There was a period in my life when I literally gorged on psychoanalysts like Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Erik Erikson, structural anthropologists like Claude Levi Strauss, myth critics like Northtrop Frye, criticism on literary histories, post modernists like Derrida and his concept of deconstruction, Foucault and his theory of power politics, Lacan and his theories on the link between language and psychology etc because of certain circumstances which forced me to read them up.
If I think it worth my while, it would not be a very difficult deal to tear apart any series or any film, scene to scene, word to word, expression to expression. After doing something like this, I would hardly have any pleasure or satisfaction of having seen something worthwhile. That is what excessive analysis and trying to judge something does to a viewer. If you or I are going to behave like the master chef judges of an Indian Khichdi served up hot to us by dissecting it bit by bit, we would hardly relish it, not even the things that work.
It took so many years after independence to make a movie with the kind of production values and execution we saw in Babubali to be made. It is a movie all of us can be proud of. But aren't we unreasonable in expecting a TV series to equal it in excellence and production values? Why even the budgets are not the same!
And Bahubali was not the most original and innovative story in existence that we are accusing CN of copying and lifting from it. Bahubali creates its own fictional kingdom and fictional characters to inhabit it along with a fictional history, geography and in places its own language as well which deserves all the accolades it is getting. The film truly does have a vision of its own. But those of you who have seen it, prove me wrong if the entire set up is not Mahabharata Rebooted?
We have two warring cousins fighting for the throne, Amarendra Bahubali and Bhallala Deva, one representing the side of good, and the other representing the side of evil, just like the Pandavas and Kauravas.
AB is the son of the ruling king who is the younger brother but comes to the throne because the elder brother Vijjaladeva is physically handicapped. Isn't this like the Pandu and Dhritharashtra parallel? Vijjaladeva has a blind affection for his son, BD despite his penchant for evil, just like Dhritharashtra's love for Duryodhan.
Take the character of Katappa. Isn't he Bhishma and Karna combined; a slave to the ruling throne, the right man in the wrong side, one whose obligation and dependence on the ruling throne affects his loyalties over his personal belief system of right and wrong, good and bad. He is forever shackled to side with evil though he does not concur with their views and ideas
Rani Devasena in prison waiting for her son to rescue her, isn't she another Devaki waiting for Krishna? Devasena is a Draupadi as well because she harbors a terrible feeling of vengeance against those who made her and her family suffer, unlike Devaki who is comparatively more fore bearing towards Kamsa. Devasena even keeps on preparing the bed of funeral pyre for BD with the twigs she picks up during her free time. It is the sort of revengeful feeling Draupadi is capable of.
And the scene where Shivudu is smuggled out of the prison by Rajmata Sivagami in that pelting rain before that river in spate to that colony of tribals, aren't there definite echoes of Vasudev and baby Krishna before River Yamuna.
And now to the famous Shiv ling lifting song, isn't there a definite Krishna lifting the Govardhan Parvat hangover?
So my main point is, themes in mythology and history keep repeating. They are cyclic in nature. Why even our fashions and almanacs keep repeating after a definite set of years. Only the names and a few circumstances and situations keep changing. That is why we read history. It keeps us grounded, it tells us why we are the way we are, it gives us warning of what happened in the past to our ancestors and forewarns us what may happen in the future if we are not careful enough.
Ever heard history repeats itself. It happens all the time all around us. We often make the same mistakes our parents made and learn our lessons the hard way. Jung says that the whole of humanity shares "a universal consciousness'. We have shared memories and shared experiences. This results in shared myths or stories. Only names and few basic details differ. If you take up the myths of different cultures which share no geographical unity, they are in many occasions same at the ideological level. Take the example of the Fall of Icarus and that of Garuda's elder brother(I forget the name of this Indian mythical character), it is the same at the ideological level.
Levi Strauss says that we can break up any individual myth into a set of basic meaningful mythical units called mythemes. These mythemes or basic themes or ideas in a myth combine and recombine in different ways to form different myths. Interesting isn't it? If all this is so, where does the concept of perfect originality come in? Everything is recycled and re-presented at some point.
That was the point I was trying to make. I have nothing against Bahubali. Moreover I loved it just in the same way as I am loving CN now. If we are going to compare both at every point, CN is going to come second best leaving us with nothing but disappointment. It will just not do. We watch something to feel happy and satisfied and not to be permanently and consistently disatisfied.
CID
Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi 2
