Bhima’s Passions

Having just finished reading M T Vasudevan Nair’s Malayalam novel, രണ്ടാമൂഴം [The Second Turn], I wonder whether the award-winning novel would have been written today.  It was written in 1984 and went on to receive more than 50 reprints in Malayalam, let alone the translations.  The fate of movies like Padmavati makes me think that the novel would have attracted much controversy had it been published today.

However, the novel is being made into a movie, the most expensive non-English movie with a budget of $155 million [INR 1000 crore].  Maybe India will be a different country by 2021, the year in which the movie will be completed, and the movie won’t court undue controversy. 

The novel takes quite an unorthodox look at the Mahabharata. Bhima is the narrator and in his perspective no character is divine or even unduly superhuman.  Even Krishna appears as just another warrior and king of a small kingdom.  Bhishma gets hardly any importance since Bhima had little to do with him. 

The title Second Turn refers to the secondary position that Bhima always received among the Pandavas in spite of the fact that they all knew that he was the most heroic among them.  When it comes to their common wife, Bhima’s turn comes after Yudhishthira.  When it comes to the skills taught by Dronacharya, Bhima is sidelined in favour of Arjuna.  However, when it comes to having to fight deadly enemies like rakshasas, Bhima is the first choice.  Even Draupati wants Bhima when she needs something extraordinary like the Saugandhika flowers.  The flowers are, however, discarded by the beautiful queen no sooner than they are offered to her by her most ardent admirer who gets them after much trouble and adventure. 

The novel presents all the characters as human beings with ordinary feelings and passions like lust, jealousy, anger and greed.  The author is a scholar who did extensive research before writing the novel.  The period in which it is set come alive in the novel.  The dress styles, the architecture of different places and the kind of weapons employed in warfare are all presented with as much accuracy as possible.  The novels is so engrossing that I completed reading it in two days. 

The thought that dominates my mind is: why did readers receive it without any problem while many books and movies with much less controversial stuff stirs up more ill feelings today?  Why has India changed in undesirable ways?  Why have Indians become intolerant today?  Why are we regressing?

Bhima is both heroic and very fallibly human in the novel.  India has lost the ability for true heroism, it looks like.  Indians have become too fallibly human.  That’s not a healthy sign.