Mahabharata, what is not in it, is nowhere!

Part V: Road block

Remember the Tank man's protest by blocking the Tanks at Tiananmen square in 1989? if thats too old, there are enough road blocking instances happening in India (almost on a daily basis in Kerala) by almost all the political parties.Blocking roads has become the most abused form of protest.

There is a different type of Road blocking happening in the Great Mahabharata. Panchali, during the exile once asked Bhima for the most beautiful kalyana sougandhikam flower. He went in search of the flower in the forest.On the way he found an old monkey lying and blocking his way. Bhima,greatly annoyed at the old monkey lying in his path,asked him to move off but the monkey told he was too old to move and requested Bhima to move his tail and keep it aside. Bhima tried with his fingers first then with one and later even with two hands but couldn't even nudge the tail by an inch.Later Bhima tried to move the tail with his gada(mace), but found to his dismay, that the gada which is now under the monkey’s tail cannot be moved at all.Bhima realised that the old monkey was no ordinary one.he begged the old monkey to reveal his true identity.Hanuman gave his introduction and asked Bhima to shed his false pride,blessed him. One more instances of what is not in The Mahabharata, is nowhere

Mahabharata, what is not in it, is nowhere!

Part IV: Male pregnancy

This is in continuation of my series on The Great Indian Epic, The Mahabharata

If you missed Part I(War live commentary), II(Walkout) and III(Quiz)

There is this wonderful movie Juniorof Arnold Schwarzenegger,becoming pregnant and giving birth to a baby. Its quite interesting to watch a man getting pregmant and giving birth.In animal world,Sea horse take care of the so called female activity but if you look at Mahabharata, you come across a similar incident.

Once,few boys of Krishna's Yadhava clan dressed up a boy Samban, as a pregnant woman. They teased Sage Durvasar asking him if the child would be a boy or a girl. Enraged Durvasar cursed that a steel pestle would be born which would annihilate the entire YAdhava clan. Same thing happened and the steel pestle resulted in the downfall of the Krishna clan. One more plot confirming the fact that what is not in Mahabharata, is nowhere!

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..)