Sunday, August 13, 2006

Mighty Bharata Vol 1 Chapter 1

Show me your earhole and I will tell you a story; story of brothers and cousins, of wives and saints, and of abundance and depravity... Keep quiet now, for I am about to begin...

There was once a blind king, Dhritta-something. He was blind from birth, so had absolutely no idea of what things looked like. Amidst spells of inferiority, he would try to join in on conversations: 'yeah, baby- you're soft', 'wow, look at this view, it's sooo... mmm... smelly'; or 'the best part in that movie was the soundtrack'... and the likes...

His annoyability could only be matched by his copycat wife, who would imitate things and actions to the point of impossibility. Let me prove my point by saying that she copied her husband's blindness by draping a piece of cloth over her eyes-mind you-throughout her life.

I guess people are right when they say blind people have heightened sensitivities to other senses- they must have had an amazing sex life. I mean, they had tons of sons- like a hundred thousands or something. They had to post signs everywhere for hiring nannies, and invent new languages (like french, latin) to name them.

Still, it wasn't enough, and many kids died. Which was lucky for Leonardanand Da Vinciswamy, an ascetic with a nocturnal habit of filching dead kids and performing all sorts of experiments. He came up with results like if you throw in two hands, two legs, a torso, a head, and a pair of legs together, you still are short of a spark to make a person alive.

Vinciswamy did have some positive contributions to humanity. He was the one who suggested splitting the chest to bare the heart and conduct a bypass. A novel stunt which was inspired from the most ancient superhero, Hanuman, when he ripped open his ribcage to reveal his dripping and throbbing insides to SitaRam.

Dhritta-something had an elder brother, Giant Pandu, who had blackened eyesockets and loved bamboo shoots and leaves. I mean, he liked to go to bars, order bamboo, shoot the bartender, and leave the place. Stories claim that he still has a living lineage, who are, though, on the endangered list and are under intense scrutiny by the Chinese authorities.

Pandu gave his wife Kunti five kids. Kunti might have been jealous of her sis-in-law's litter, had it not been for one of their sons, Vim, who would create everyday food shortage by gorging on edibles and near-edibles. Her eldest son would create almost-everyday embarrassment by telling horrible truths; 'Gauri, did you just fart?', or 'I do not know why, but I cannot lie. Once I tried to write 'blue' in red ink and ended up writing 'bllllllrrrrrrrrrreddddddd!!!'.

The second-eldest was Arjun. AJ always showed after his father in his violent tendencies. He thought a bow was mightier than a pen or a sword. At times he caused himself harm by kneeling on one knee, looking to the ground, and shooting an arrow vertically above. Ironically, it was only after he perfected this feat that the arrow in its perfect trajectory gravitated back to earth to pierce his own unfortunate skull. He was too dazed to realize that all the while he had defined his own head as the target. It was a mix of fury and embarrassment when friendly Eklavya shouted 'BULLSEYE!!' gleefully as a compliment. However, Arjun did not forget this incident and finally hatched a plot later to make Drona ask for Ekky's thumb as a Gurudakshina.

Nakul-Sahadev were identical twins. They always matched their actions to be virtually indistinguishable. They would, however, invariably let out their respective identities after Queen mother would irritably try to join in and imitate their actions to be the 'third twin'.

Pandu kept an outer facade of humbleness, but he ran an underground propaganda machine to make people gullibly gossip about how Pandu, despite his killing tendencies in bars, was a more deserving king than that the blind guy.

Words were abound that there was yet a third brother who had to distance himself from the royal business. But let's not talk about him, because he did not have a personality and I do not know too much about him.

end of chapter 1. To be continued ...

Glimpse of chapter 2:
The Dhritta-litter grew and spread, fought and haggled over the land, and created an unfair, unhealthily competitive mood over the whole place...

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2 Comments:

Blogger zany said...

when i started off i thot the vol 1 n chapter 1 was starting of a daily routine we have at bharataz plc at mid noon... thank god it's more of a epic changing ... era turning kind of a theme... u got a reader!!

11:30 PM  
Blogger Asmita said...

Its esp. engaging for one who has heard a bit of mahabharata, to wait for the subsequent chapters and see what you are going to do next!

:)

2:02 PM  

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