Of epic learnings

BENGALURU: Did you know about the version of Mahabharata where Shakuni is against the Kauravas instead of the Pandavas? Turns out there are many more twists in this great Indian epic that city-based storyteller Aparna Jaishankar will explore in an upcoming event.

She will also shine a spotlight on the lesser known women in the story, such as Madri, King Pandu’s second wife; Hidimba, Bheema’s first wife; and a maid named Parishrami, who was Vidur’s mother. “Many might have come across these characters in the Mahabharata but not much has been written about them,” says Jaishankar, who has been a storyteller for five years. 

The event will also look at the different regional and folk versions of the epic. “While the core story remains the same, these versions have other details in them. For example, the Bhil tribe has a different version.” This, she emphasises, is the beauty of Indian mythology that brings different layers to a story. “It is still fiction because we don’t know if it really happened.

But the story managed to survive for so long and travel across borders for people to adapt it,” she explains. For instance, Indraprastha is popularly known to be situated near Haryana and Delhi, but there is also a version where it is believed that during the exile, the Pandavas lived in a cave in Karnataka.

“Somehow the geography does work out but the fact that people adapted it in their own way makes it more interesting,” says the 42-year-old storyteller, who will be doing a physical session for the first time after February. 

(The event will be held at Lahe Lahe, on Nov. 21, 5pm onwards)

As the legend goes... 
According to many authors, Lord Krishna gave Geetopadesha when Arjuna resisted the idea of going for a war against his cousins. But according to the 15th century Odia poet Sarala Das, the incident comes twice in the whole story. While the second one was during the war, the first was when the Pandavas were in exile. The story goes that when Arjuna went on a hunt, he came across a Navagunjara - a creature made of nine different animals. Eventually it is revealed that it was Krishna who adopted that avatar to impart the knowledge that it is impossible to see the whole picture of the story, and that the knowledge you receive from a story depends on the part you are exposed to.