Any Balram fan around? - Page 3

I have been on this forum since the show began 😆 Just don't get time to come online often 😆

But oh barbie i louuuve balram. Basant is the second most favorite after Sumedh. I do not like episodes when he is not there jethji rocks 🥳

I'm not on IF much but popped in today and saw this so decided to join in - another Basant/Balram fan here. 😊

Unlike several of you, I've not seen any of Sumedh's shows before.

And mostly because I am a Basant Bhatt fan from way back (have seen/watch all his shows from the beginning to end/current episodes) and had read earlier this year that he would be in RK, which was finally seeing the light of day. 😃

Since he is currently playing a very prominent role (Kartikeya) in Vighnaharta Ganesh, when I heard that he would also be playing Balram in Swatik's RadhaKrishna, which would clearly be filmed in Umergaon like the other Swastik shows, I figured that he would obviously have quite a prominent role in RK. Made sense to me, otherwise why make him travel back and forth from Mumbai to Umergaon if he won't have much to do in RK when he is already playing a major character in VG?

I'm glad this also made sense to the Swastik people and that they have given Basant a very prominent role! And boy, has he taken the bull by the horns and run with it!!! 👏 He is doing fantastically well in both Vighnaharta Ganesh and RadhaKrishna, and juggling between them, and it is great to see him getting to do more comedy with Balram and getting to showcase his versatility more, and gaining more recognition for his great work. 👏⭐️

Sometimes I think (not only me, surely?) that RK is moving way too slowly with getting Radha to the point of realising that appearances are not everything (assuming this is what they are getting at) and I find the goings-on annoying and unnecessary (especially when there is too much Ayan or Jatila), but I am glad that if they are dragging things then at least they are putting in lots of funny stuff, especially with the very impish Balram/Basant. ⭐️ (The "pehelwan nritya" was fantastic, and I wish I could shoulder-press a tree one-handed! 🤣)

And the Balram-Krishna bond is great - it is good to see them showcasing brotherly love, too, rather than just concentrating on the Radha-Krishna love story. 😊 It is also nice to see the parent-child bonds, mostly with Krishna and Radha and their respective parents but even with Ayan and Jatila (she may be irritating but she does care for her son). But it would be great if they showed more of Balram's bonding with his mother, Rohini, as well. I like what little they have shown so far, but more would be nice, especially given that Balram was a "miracle baby" (my words) for Rohini, Devki and Vasudev, given his birth story, which they didn't even touch on in this show. 😕

[For anyone who doesn't know Balram's birth story, it is said that Sheshnag incarnated as Devki's seventh child after her first six sons had been killed by Kans, so that he would be born as Krishna's elder brother. But during Devki's seventh pregnancy, on the request of Shri Krishna, Devi Yogmaya extracted and transferred the unborn Balram from Devki's womb into the womb of Rohini, Vasudev's first wife, who was living in/went to live in Nand's home in Gokul for safety. So Balram was born of Rohini rather than Devki, and for all intents and purposes, everyone at the time thought that Devki's seventh pregnancy ended in a miscarriage. This also confused Kans as to whether the child of Devki's eighth pregnancy (Krishna, or baby Yogmaya as they originally thought) was actually to be considered her seventh or eighth child. This womb-transfer is also why another name of Shri Balram is Sankarshan (one meaning of the word "sankarshan" is "extraction"). This allowed Balram to be born safely and so be around to help Krishna for his whole life - the purpose of Sheshnag's incarnation - and also, there is a story that Rohini was a reincarnation/re-birth of Devi Kadru who is the mother of all snakes (including Sheshnag), and that Sheshnag wanted to honour his mother by having his incarnation be born of her in her then-current existence (which is so sweet!). 😊 Devki is said to be a reincarnation of Devi Aditi, mother of the Devs, and Vasudev a reincarnation of Rishi Kashyap, husband of Aditi, Kadru and many others and father of practically everyone (Devs, snakes, asurs, etc etc). Krishna/Vishnu is said to have been born 3 times to this set of parents - first when they were Prishni-Sutapa, then Aditi-Kashyap (in his Vaman avatar) and finally as Krishna to Devki-Vasudev. And so Balram was born of Rohini-Vasudev, the reincarnations of Sheshnag's parents, Kadru and Kashyap, but was still also considered to be the seventh child of Devki as well. And we can also consider Balram to be one of the first people to have 3 biological parents! Another point sometimes raised is that by having Balram be born of Rohini instead of Devki, Krishna could be born earlier on Earth than if Devki had given birth to Balram, although it is generally stated that Balram was 3 years older than Krishna, so I don't know about this speeding-up theory. There are many interpretations of this story but hopefully you get my overall point. I do wish they had at least mentioned this story a little bit in the show as is is so interesting and has much meaning! It kind of looks like they are insinuating in this RK show (I think this is possible purely because they haven't actually said anything!) that Rohini is a second wife of Nand and that Balram is the son of Rohini and Nand here, which is unnecessary. It's fine that Balram calls Nand "baba" as he is his father figure but I do find it strange if they are actually insinuating that Balram isn't Vasudev's son (they might not be but it seems that way a bit), especially seeing as Balram knows exactly who he is (as well as who Krishna and Radha are) and so would then be aware of how he was born, etc etc. Not a major thing, but this is one example when they have left out a really cool known story from the show, which could still be potentially unknown to many viewers, just to hurry up to getting the characters teen-aged. Another thing: Basant has sure got to play some characters with interesting birth stories - Karna, Kartikeya and Balram! 😊]

Anyway, getting back to the point, I'm glad that they chose Basant to play Balram when they decided to have the main characters as teenagers. (Even though Krishna is said to have left for Mathura at the age of around 12, I guess it could look weird in our current times to have a love story based only on small children or with a very young Krishna and older Radha, and to have Ayan-Radha's marriage potentially take place at a currently socially unacceptable age, so I'm ok with Swastik taking the liberty with their ages, given what they want to portray.)

Like for many of you, the episodes without Balram are not as interesting for me as the ones with him, but I absolutely understand the necessity of this so that Basant can still continue to be part of Vighnaharta Ganesh as well (please don't ever leave VG, please, please, please!). At some point it would be nice to have more Balram-centric tracks (it would certainly be more interesting than the Ayan-Jatila overdose!) so people can actually learn a bit more about Shri Balram as well. It would be good if they showed the killing of Dhenukasur (it would still fit with the current story) and maybe even Balram moving the Yamuna river closer to Vrindavan with his plough, although they have already shown Yamuna pretty close so this one probably won't happen. Or even just show the plough more, people! It took 22 episodes for us to finally see it and even then it was only for that short sequence for the battle with Kans's army that didn't end up actually happening! (Balram is called Halayuddha for a reason!) I do like that Balram's teeka in this show is a plough - at least they have the iconography there is some form, with him being the God of Agriculture. Most shows have a snake teeka for Balram, which is fine when he is older, but I like the idea of the plough when he is younger and out working the fields etc. And I like the snake ear-pieces that have for him, too - different to the usual earrings. Swastik seem to like giving Basant interesting ear jewellery - first Karna's very snazzy earrings in Suryaputra Karna (worn by all 4 actors who played Karna in that show and almost a character in their own right!) and now these unique snake pieces! Cool, cool! And I'm glad his costume is mostly blue, in keeping with Balram's iconography - in one mytho show they had Balram exclusively in red and gold and it just didn't seem "right"! Basant looks really nice in blue (although he looks nice all the time, in my opinion).

Basant is doing an AWESOME job and it is great to see him getting the due recognition and wider exposure, not only for this role but for his other ones as well (which it appears not that many people may have know about previously).

Very well done, Basant! Take a bow and keep up the awesomeness! 👏⭐️

[DISCLOSURE: I generally like the older mytho shows because they usually stuck more to the stories from the scriptures/epics etc, given things like their time constraints when most of them were only on for 1 episode a week or so rather than being daily shows, and that the makers (like the Late Ramanand Sagar, who made the Shri Krishna serial in the 1980's-90's and the original Ramayan serial) were usually trying to educate the masses about those stories in addition to entertaining them (although obviously there is an element of fictionalisation in all shows - it needs to be entertaining after all). The mytho shows these days tend to take more liberty with the stories and put in more interpretation of messages, which is fine, but what irritates me at times is the complete making up of things/putting in completely fictionalised stories for "entertainment value" when there are already very interesting (and spicy enough!) stories from scriptures/folk tales etc that people may or may not already know about, that would have been great to see come to life. I appreciate that all shows have something to offer the audience and that they all take a lot of hard work and effort to make, but this does still annoy me, especially when makers claim that their shows are authentic and based on loads of research. So, this is why I say I decided to watch RK to give it a fair chance - I wasn't sure what they would do seeing as they obviously want to make a long show but are focussing only on a short part of Radha-Krishna's lives.]

When he was in Suryaputra Karna, Basant was 21 when he played teenage Karna and 22 when he played Karna's son Vrishasena. Nice that he got a double role in his very first show! And he is 24 now, as you guys have already said. ⭐️

@Sutapasima and Barbie, thanks for your kind welcome and I'm glad you liked my post. I'll try to come here every so often if time permits.

@Suta, I'm glad you were able to learn something from my post (I'm guessing, about Balram's birth story?). And you've very nicely proven my point that it would have been good if they had put in some more info in the show before rushing to the teenage characters - that way you (and others) could have learnt this from the show (rather than from me)! 😆 (Mera yahaan aana sarthak hua!)

@Barbie, Basant is absolutely a treasured cast member of VG! He's not been there that much in recently-aired episodes (because of filming for RK at the times when most parts of those VG episodes were filmed) but he's back shooting for VG now and we'll get to see more Kartikeya there again soon. So seeing as I watch both shows, at least I'll get to see him in one or the other, if not both! Good on the makers of both VG and RK for being so accommodating!