Ultimate Kurukshetra at the Esplanade

What a kick ass show of Ultimate Kurukshetra at the Esplanade!!!

What a bunch of stars! The back stage team were stellar! Take a bow! You deserve it!

Yuyutsu - the very famous Kaurava Prince - er... who?

The character of Yuyutsu in the Mahabharata presents us with a curious case of a Kaurava prince who fought on the Pandava side at Kurukshetra. Yuyutsu it is said, accepted King Yudhishtra’s eleventh hour invitation to anyone who wanted to switch sides before the start of the battle, ostensibly, onto the “right” side of dharma. In a morally unambiguous worldview, the Kauravas were the “bad guys” and one can only imagine the reasons why Yuyutsu would realise at the last moment that he ought to actually be with the “good guys”.

RGK as Yuyutsu, the Kaurava with a conscience.

Of course, once the fighting started transgressions and excesses occurred on both sides. What was a dharmic action and what was not, and from whose point of view, is the stuff of soaring philosophical debate that makes the characters in the Mahabharata so complex, and the idea of dharma so perplexing. In Ultimate Kurukshetra the ethical dilemma behind Yuyutsu’s crucial decision is presented as the epic narrative frame, into which we are thrust into the on-ground action in medias res.

To know more come be a part of the Ultimate Kurukshetra journey…

The wax palace burns

Harish Seshadri as Adi

The burning of the wax palace (Lakshagraha) or the house of lac is a minor moment in the Mahabharata. The Pandavas find out about a plot to kill them, hatched by Duryodhana and an architect of ill-repute Purochana, when they are living in a small settlement called Varnavata. The Pandavas turn the trap to their advantage, setting off the fire themselves to cover their escape via a secret tunnel. In an ethically troubling decision, the Pandavas hoodwink a Nishada woman with five sons into staying at the house of lac the night of their escape. Their charred bodies served as plausible cover to make it seem that the Pandavas perished in the trap. When read as an instance of “structural violence” the incident is a grim reminder about political violence that can tear apart a society and pit one community against another. In Ultimate Kurukshetra, the burning of the wax palace cuts short Adi’s urban aspirations and turns him into a bitter man, hell-bent on revenge. As Maya says about Varnavata after that terrible incident, “The city was never the same.”

To know more come be a part of the Ultimate Kurukshetra journey…

It’s all Maya…

Mallika Prasad as Maya in Ultimate Kurukshetra

The women in the Mahabharata are figures of towering grandeur and pathos, full of dignity despite hardship and insult, ever so noble in their stoicism, human in their suffering and their rage against injustice. Yet, the feminine perspectives offered are predominantly of the nobility, who despite their high social status, are politically constrained in their ability to take independent decisions. It is no surprise that the patriarch Bhishma, evades Draupadi’s question to the court, when she has been lost by King Yudhishtara in the game of dice. Was she lost before or after Yudhishtra lost himself? Can someone who has lost their own agency, stake another? The status quo answer Bhishma provides is unsatisfactory, a canard that hinges on a subtlety of dharma. In Ultimate Kurukshetra Maya is stunning in her self-reliance and not being from courtly life, is capable of a series of bold decisions and life choices. Her zig-zag journey to Kurukshetra takes her to the decadence of Shalya’s camp (paternal uncle to the Pandavas but fighting on the Kaurava side as a result of a political quirk), and her dazzling intellectual contribution to the world is something of a twist!

To know more come be a part of the Ultimate Kurukshetra journey…

Acquiring divine weapons in the Himalayas

Internal or external journey? Karn Malhotra as Sudarshana

In the Mahabharata Arjuna spends time in the mountains meditating and acquiring divine weapons. His steadfast concentration and intense mental focus are legendary, given that he was (arguably) the best archer in the world at the time. However, one can’t help wondering that wandering off into the mountains was less about mystical revelations and magical powers, as it was about creating strategic alliances and confederacies with the mountain dwelling clans and tribes. The acquisition of power might have been less about divine interventions and heavenly gifts from gods, and more about learning new modes of warfare and innovative tactics from the constantly warring clans of the region. So is this journey of acquiring divine power an internal or external one? In Ultimate Kurukshetra, this is the question that confounds Sudarshana, as he searches for answers. His search takes him away from the blissful seaside of Gomanta, to the icy scree of the Himalayas, to the scrub of the final battle at Kurukshetra. As he learns to manipulate time (sometimes knowingly and mostly unwittingly) he makes a profound discovery.

To know more come be a part of the Ultimate Kurukshetra journey…

The Mahabharata as a frame narrative

Stories within stories in Ultimate Kurukshetra

The Mahabharata as a narrative structure is mind boggling. Eighteen books, a hundred thousand verses, accretions, redactions, interpolations… reams of scholarship have been committed to this field of study. It is also a frame narrative, where the story is nested within dialogues between characters (Vaiśampāyana-King Janamejaya, Ugraśrava Sauti to an assembly of sages, and others). The legendary author of the narrative (Vyasa, Krishna Dvaipāyana according to some), is also a character within it. Ultimate Kurukshetra mimics this story-within-a story structure. The story is presented in multiple narrative frames, and in the microcosm of the stage, humbly pays homage to the greatness of the epic. The play takes as a starting point that even the very small action, matters in the face of the very great moment!

To know more come be a part of the Ultimate Kurukshetra journey…

The Burning of the Khandava Forest

Anirudh Acharya as Daksha.

The burning of the Khandava forest in the Mahabharata is a relatively minor incident. Arjuna and Krishna level a forest, on which the Pandavas build their capital city. One point of view, is that the Pandavas required a stronghold from which to rival the Kaurava capital of Hastinapura. However critical engagement of this incident from other points of view question this pragmatic explanation. The ecological devastation wrought by the Pandavas was total, killing (almost) every living thing in the forest. There is also the terrifying prospect that this was genocide, where a clan intent on establishing a settled polity, butchers the itinerant tribes and indigenous peoples. This pattern is grimly familiar, as the march of development and urbanisation struggles to reconcile with ecological approaches. In Ultimate Kurukshetra, this minor incident in the epic destroys the livelihood of the forest dweller Daksha. The words he utters, “What about us?” in the face of Arjuna’s destructive inferno chills my heart to this day.

To know more come be a part of the Ultimate Kurukshetra journey…