Mahabharata, what is not in it, is nowhere!

War live commentary

Gulf war (2 August 1990 – 28 February 1991) fought between Iraq and the coalition force from 34 nations, with the purpose of expelling Iraqi forces from Kuwait after Iraq's occupation and annexation of Kuwait in August 1990 is considered to be the first war that was live telecast. Channels like CNN, NBC, ABC, and CBS showed live footage of US’s Patriot missiles engulfing the Saddam’s Iraq.

Footage of Gulf war
First day

Air strikes


But was there anything like this in Mahabharata, the great Indian epic?

The Great War between Pandavas and Kauravas at Kurukshetra (believed to have happened some 3000 years before Jesus Christ’s birth) was the first war that was telecast live. If millions of people around the world saw the Gulf war live, there was only one person who saw live the Kurukshetra war, Sanjaya the charioteer of blind King Dhritarashtra. Just before the war, Veda Vyasa visited Dhritarashtra and asked if he was interested to see the war. Dhritarashtra did not want to see the war between his sons and their cousins so Vyasa gave ‘Divyachakshus’ (Special yogic power) to Sanjaya to see the war live. Sanjaya not only saw the war live but gave an excellent running commentary of the war to Dhritarashtra. And by doing so Sanjaya became the first commentator, the true predecessor of John Holliman and Peter Arnett of CNN and David Green and Andy Thompson who were part of CBS crew that reported the Gulf war.

(To be continued..)