Excerpts from Mahabharata

"Main Samay Hoon ,Main sab jaanta hoon ,blah blah blah " , Yes ! I m talking about the great epic Mahabharat .Few weeks bak we had a discussion on the stories of all the grt characters in the war epic and we realized that it's not a bad idea to revise this serial as we were all kids when we watched it for the 1st time on Doordarshan,when I used to have more fun in orienting the antenna on the terrace rather than watching the serial with all tough hindi words which were like bouncers to me then.

Well the story started with Maharaj Bharat who was succeeded by "Shantanu".Shantanu was already cursed by Brahma ( in Heaven for eyeing on Ganga in Indra's palace) to take birth on Earth.But on earth as well he could not control his vaasna and fell for her yet another time. Without any second thoughts he promised her that he wouldnt question her for anything.And she killed 7 sons who were born.But the 8th time,Shantanu gave up and asked off as to whats her problem and she expained everything abt their past life.This 8th son, is named Devrata.

Now, when Devrata is man enough to think abt his marriage,Shantanu spots Satyavati and falls for her !! But Satyavati's dad demands that her sons should be rulers after Shantanu and he would have to say "Balls ! " to Devrata.After Devrat finds this out ,he himself tells Satyati's Dad tat he doesnt give a damn to the kingdom and takes off the oath to be Brahmacharya throughout .Shantanu gets so excited that to add salt to injury he gives a vardhaan of "IcchaMrityu" to Devrata ( who became Bhishma after his oath ) And there after Shantanu leads his life with Satyavati with guilt .

Well, in Mahabharat ,I guess the king's biggest tension was to have kids and may be that's y they followed polygamy.So after Satyavati's kid ,Vichitravirya died after marrying Ambika and Ambalika,Satyavati was forced to call Rishi Vyaas to impregnate Ambika and Ambalika.Trust me this is the most hillarious episode in Mahabharat.Satyavati sent Ambika and Ambalika one by one to Vyaas .Ambika got so scared after seeing Vyaas ,that she closed her eyes and her son is born blind .Yes , this kid is going to be Dhritrasthtra who in the following episodes is the most irritating character in Mahabharat .Ambalika, though was instructed by Satyavati ,not to close her eyes ,could not take fear and turned pale .Her kid is going to be Pandu who was going to have health issues.After this Satyavati instructed them to go to Vyaas again but they were so scared that they sent a maid, who was pretty sport and took things coolly .Her kid is going to be Hastinapur's PM ,Vidur .

Pandu became a grt ruler and after some great wins he decided to go on a honeymoon with Kunti and Madri .Their honeymoon rocked except for an accident when He shot arrows at a Saint while the saint was enjoying with his wife under a tree .The Saint got so pissedd that he cursed Pandu that he'll die the moment he hugs any woman !! Now the question remained as to how to get kids ( the same old problem ) ?? Pandu one day finally couldnt control himself after seeing Madri coming from bath and finally he dies .

Kunti then used her vardhaan she got from Parashuram ( I guess )and got 3 kids from three Gods -->Yudhisthir (Dharma God) ,Arjuna (Indra) and Bhim ( Vaayu ) .Kunti in her desire to check whether the vardhaan works or not had already used it once to get a kid from Agni Dev called Karna .Meanwhile, the villains are also born from Gandhari ( Dhritrashta's wife) .We all know them as Dooryodhan and Dushashan ,who later participated in the root cause of the war -->Draupadi's Vastraharan.

Nowadays there is fashion of unbraided hair but this was not the case in those days . After the infamous incident ,She left her hair unbraided and demanded that she will decorate her hair only after Duryodhan and Dushashan are dead .So in my opinion this was the major reason for Mahabharat .Krishna though made it a point to make it look like the war was between Truth and Evil ..

There was a nice incident which occurred in Heaven when Arjun went to collect Divine Weapons from Indra.Urvashi , the ace apsara got so attracted to Arjun that she asked him to embrace her.Arjun denied saying she is like his mom and this pissed Urvashi so much that she cursed him to stay Impotent throughout ( this was later relaxed to 1 year under Indra's influence)

Well Mahabharat is full of great stories and there can be no way it can be accommodated in a post over here .But for any doubts let me know :-)

The family tree is something like this :