The Great Indian Novel by Shashi
Tharoor
This book is one of the top ten books to know about Indians and Indian History. I got the
above information on Google so I bought it. Well, this is not a History book
but this is a mocking of Indian History, but it never manipulates it. The book
narrates the Indian history from the beginning of the Gandhi era during British
colonization to the end of Indira Gandhi’s regime.The most striking feature of
this novel that it takes the characters and events of the Mahabharat, the great
epic and molds in the characters and events of Indian History. Thus, I think
Shashi Tharoor hadn’t to think a lot what to write but the only task as a
writer he had just to correlate the events of Mahabharat to the events of our
great History and by all means I would say that it was a big task. Only a
genius mind can think of such idea. The second appreciable thing in this book
is its language and style-excellent poetry, excellent humor and wit, excellent
picturization and excellent narration.
The narrator
is VVji (Ved Vyas, 88 year old, recalls his spent years during the struggle for
freedom and the post-independence years. He is transformed in the character of
RajaJi, C. Rajgopalachari and as the
story procceds VVji also resembles Sanjiv Reddy, Acharya Kriplani and V. V.
Giri). Ganpathi is a south Indian young man who is appointed to transcribe the
memoir of VVji resembles Lord Ganesha. The story begins in the same epical way,
VVji is the product of Parashar and Satyavati, they both don’t marry though.
Existence of VVji is concealed for a
short time. Satyavati after gets married to Shantanu, king of Hastinapur who is
already had a son from a lady whom he met on the bank of Ganges, the name of
that son is Ganga Datta (Bhishma). Their marriage was on the condition that
only Satyavati’s son will be the heir of the throne after Shantanu’s death. So,
Shantanu convinces Ganga Datta to pursue celibacy and to never think of
luxuries, throne and marriage. Ganga Datta takes a sacred vow of chastity and
thus he is called Bhishma. Ganga Datta resembles Gandhi Ji.
Shantanu
gets two sons from his new wife- Chitrangada and Vichitravirya. Chitrangada
disappears from the story because of his sluggishness, and Vichitravirya
marries Ambika and Ambalika. In fact, Ganga Datta arranges his marriage who
works as the Regent of Hastinapur also. He brings three brides from a Swayamwar arranged by a king whose name
is not mentioned in the book but the epical name is Kashi. Two of them- Ambika
and Ambalika get ready for marriage but the third Amba says that she is in love
with Raja Shulva of Saubal state. Gangaji accepts then to return her to Raja
Shulva, but the king ascertains that she now belongs to Gangaji, because he had won her in a Swayamwar. Amba proposes Gangaji for marriage, but
he rejects sternly because of his solemn oath of chastity. Amba gets very angry
and warns Gangaji that she will have her revenge as he had left her in a lurch,
afterwards she finds a surgeon to change her sex and becomes a man, named
Shikhandi. Shikhandi resembles Nathu Ram Godse.
After
sometime Vichitrvirya is died issueless, thus comes a danger on the state of
Hastinapur as the British could confiscate the state in the absence of a
legitimate heir. Satyavati implores Ganga Datta to perform Niyoga in order to save the kingdom, but Ganga Datta couldn’t break
his oath, in spite of this he advises her that a Brahman sage can perform this
act as a blessing. In this way, VVji again appears on the stage to inseminate
Vichitravirya’s two wives, but he inseminates a third one also, a maidservant
by mistake. So, three women give birth three sons- Dhritrashtra from Ambika,
Pandu from Ambalika and Vidur from the maidservant- these three resemble three
great leader of our History. Dhritrashtra, blind from the birth as Pt Jawahar
Lal Nehru (resembles him as a blind idealist), Pandu,the pale as Subhash
Chandra Bose (resembles him as a rebel, who contradicts from Gandhi and Nehru)
and the third Vidur as Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel (resembles him as the person
behind the accession of the princely states and establishment of Indian
Administrative Services).
Dhritrashtra
marries Gandhari, “the Grim”(resembles Kamla Nehru) who dies in the mid of the
story while Pandu marries two ladies, Kunti and Madri. Kunti had already a son by some illegitimate relationship so
she had to abandon. Kunti and Madri don’t resemble any real leader. In order to
fight for freedom, a political group named Kaurav Party (resembles Congress
party) is formed. The Kaurav Party exhibits all the ups and downs of the Congress
Party. Priya Duryodhani is another main character, daughter of Dhritrashtra and
Gandhari(resembles Indira Gandhi, famous for imposing emergency and seizing
dictatorial power) is shown in the book as the main villain. Pandu starts
suffering from heartache just after his marriage and a doctor warns him, “your
first orgasm will be your last” so he despises sex and devotes himself in the
politics under the guidance of Ganga Datta, to reproduce the heir he let Kunti
and Madri free to seek any Brahman sage for insemination. Both women get
inseminated from different sage, but Madri unfortunately finds a sage who is
joined bodily from his twin brother, as a result Madri bears twins, Nakul and
Sahdev, while Kunti gives birth three children- Yudhishthir, Bhim, Arjun
subsequently being more luxurious in copulation. Pandu had to warn Kunti that
it was enough and he was satisfied from Madri’s twins. So, Pandu has total five
Children and they are called, “Pandavas”. The Pandavas resembles five pillers
of our country. Yudhishthir as “the judiciary” and also resembles MorarJi
Desai, Bhim as “the Indian army”, Arjun resembles “the media”, Nakul and Sahdev
resemble, “civil services” and “foreign policy” respectively.
Pandu
doesn’t like the growing influence of Dhritrashtra in Kaurav Party, once he
becomes the party president, but due to conflicts from Dhritrashtra’s sect he
resigns and goes to form “Onward Organization” (resembles Forward Block) by
imprisoned Indian soldiers in the Second World War. Pandu dies in a plane crash
while he was on the verge of an orgasm with Madri who was gone there to join
him in the struggle. Though Pandu was living a celibate life but somewhere in
his heart there was a craving for sex and when he finds Madri and himself alone
in the plane, he couldn’t resist himself and thus the doctor’s words came true.
Madri also dies.
Since
childhood Priya Duryodhani dislikes Pandavas and plots their murder many times,
but they are saved sometimes by chance sometimes by Vidur. JayPrakash
Drona(resembles Jay Prakash Narayan, leader of Janta Party which defeated the
Congress in 1977) teaches Pandavas. His own son Aswatthama( resembles Jagjivan
Ram who first supported the congress but joined the opposition during
emergency) first supports PriyaDuryodhani and later goes against her. Eklavya is
another character(resembles V V Giri and Fakruddin Ali Ahmad,the Indian president
who assented Indira Gandhi seizure of emergency powers) who eavesdrops Drona’s
teaching and when he is caught and asked for to pay the fee as his right thumb
he denies and in later years becomes a competitor of Drona and Pandavas and
PriyaDuryodhani uses him as a tool of imposing emergency- this is somewhat
contradicting from Mahabharat’s events. D. Krishna Menon or Krishna who
supports Arjun in the elections (resembles as A.K.Gopalan, a communist leader
and first opposition leader in government). The most important character around
whom revolves all the post-independence drama is Draupadi or D. Mokrashi (resembles
Indian Democracy) is the illegitimate child of Dhritrashtra and Lady Geogiana
Drewpad( Lady Mountbatton), wife of Lord Drewpad(resembles Lord Mounbatton).
So, these
are the main characters who plays the role in forming the tale of Indian history
in the style of Mahabharat. All the happenings of Mahabharat and events in Indian
history are portrayed in the cooperation of each other. Merger of the princely
states is only described in the light of the accession of Manimir( Fictional
name of Kashmir) by Raja Vyabhichar Singh( resembles Raja Hari Singh of Kashmir
) in state of doing sex with a French lady. I think sex and orgasms are used as
the tool of satire. Indo-Pak war,Bangladesh war(as ‘GelabinDesh’- anagram of
Bengali- war) and Indo-China war is mocked while describing. Mohammad Ali
Karna(resembles Mhammad Ali Zinna) is the abandoned son of Kunti, who hacks off
Karnistan(Pakistan) from India. Jarasandh Khan(resembles Ayub Khan or Yahya
Khan) and Zaleel Shah Zhoota(resembles Zulfikkar Ali Bhutto) whose ill
political practices are shown responsible for cleaving Karnistan in two.
There is no
end of the story, after the emergency period is ended, Janta party wins the
election, and Yudhistir(Morarji Desai) becomes next PM, he is proved
ineffective in cope with the ideological differences among the party men. It was
like the history was repeating itself very soon. As PriyaDuryodhani was obsessed
with the astrology while Yudhisthir was obsessed with urine-therapy(drinking
his own urine). Just after two years the government loses confidence and in the
next election PriyaDuryodhani again comes in Power and in this way drama of
democracies goes in the country.
I liked this
novel very much and impressed by Tharoor’s style. A must read for everyone who
is interested to go through the dramatic events of the freedom struggle and
post-independence era all the way laughing.
Rating 4.5/5
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