Beneath the vast canopy of the banyan tree, Ratnakar stood with a grin, his friends crowding around him. They had watched him recast history as he saw fit, now catching a glimpse of the grandiose story he envisioned. “So, let me get this right,” said Arjun, chuckling. “Rama’s campaign across the Dakshina Desha will be … Continue reading The Making of a Legend
In the bustling courtyard of the Vishwanath Temple in Kashi, pilgrims and scholars gathered, their voices mixing in a vibrant cacophony. Aniruddha, a young monk in ochre robes, stepped forward, his eyes gleaming with conviction. “Shankaracharya teaches us that the world is an illusion!” he proclaimed. “Our true nature is one with Brahman!” Vidyadhar, a … Continue reading The Discourse at Kashi: Heretic or Saint
In the dimly lit scriptorium, a hush fell over a group of scribes gathered around palm leaves and pots of ink. The head scribe, Kumaraswami, held up his quill, his gaze drifting thoughtfully as he prepared to lead the transcription of Valmiki’s Ramayana. Yet tonight’s work held an unusual burden: recent orders from the court … Continue reading This May Not Be True
In the sixth of the UGLIE series, we throw caution to air and go further on the story of the third brother, of the Two Brothers who were the "fathers" of the Warring Cousins of the M-Story. | Do read, comment and discuss. Share but beware! | Word Count: 1592 | Flesch Kincaid Grade Level: 5.7 |
Shooting the air with a few friends, erstwhile batchmates, and then-still colleagues found uncanny parallels between geo-political, corporate and historical power shenanigans. Mythoscopy being my eternal hang-up, found the best fit as the Vikram-Betaal framing; i.e an overarching story, with one character narrating a story, with a query at the end, with the narrated story, and query, having a connection with the overarching story as well as having two-level moral learning for the final listener, i.e. us (go read the original.. it is awesome). This one has three confusing (confused) layers; (i) Superficial Corporate layer, of a pre-final VC round of a wannabe-unicorn startup, (ii) Parallel Geo-Political layer, of a dictator trying to get the sheen of being democratically elected/re-elected, and (iii) Reference Historical layer of the pre-, during-, and immediately-post-Emergency rule of Indira G. This is collaboration with @Curiouser&Curiouser | Do read, comment and discuss. Share but beware! | Word Count: 2596
A quick piece on partisanship with an extremely opinionated and shallowly researched hypothesis, informed by reading comic books, history books and WhatsApp messages of smarter, surer batchmates of mine | Do read, comment and discuss. Share but beware! | Word Count: 1503 | Flesch Kincaid Grade Level: 5.7 |
In this eighth chapter of B2B, we explore a lesser known incident, which though in an important part of the original R-Story (enter-the-jungle-milestone) is "almost" never detailed in the myriad retellings. There is an attempt to make a statement about media control, and narrative changes. Some parallels with the incident that truly ignited the public opinion about the BLM movement have been accentuated. One character's dialogues are exclusively texts from tweets of a personage with "yuge" fan-following. The character shares the first name of this "classy" paragon of virtue. No disrespect meant, neither to the past or the present. Just worried about our future, "bigly". | Do read, comment and discuss. Share but beware! | Word Count: 2033 | Flesch Kincaid Grade Level: 4 |
In the seventh chapter of B2B, we explore the incident of Shabari and her offered meal of wild berries. I have tried to denote two different languages (or dialects) by the use of different font colours, as well as grammatical structures. (Makes sense if you read them out loud. Apologies!) I do not state in any way that this ever happened! But sadly on 25th December 1968, something heinous did happen in Kizhavenmani village, in Nagapattinam district of Tamil Nadu, INDIA. Link is embedded in the post (in a font size hard to miss) for those who would not be averse to know. | Do read, comment and discuss. Share but beware! | Word Count: 2371 | Flesch Kincaid Grade Level: 2.3 |
In the sixth chapter of B2B, we explore the Incident of the cutting-off of nose (and ears as well as per a few versions) of a sister of the Main Demon King. In the Indian vernacular the implication of "nose getting cut" in some cases is loss of honor, which in case of the fairer sex has a much more sinister connotation. Ah, and an aside that the Great Ape Champion negotiated an alliance between the Princes of North and one of the Kings of the Ape-Men, based on pragmatism and to avoid blood-shed rather than "devotion". I do not state in any way that this ever happened! | Do read, comment and discuss. Share but beware! | Word Count: 2607 | Flesch Kincaid Grade Level: 4.3 |
In the fifth chapter of B2B, we further work out the thematic explanation of Ten Heads being ten separate Kings. In addition we play with the various form of names the kings are called by their followers and opponents. I also have inserted an ill-conceived personal answer to the question "what is a nation". IMHO a "nation" is a group of people and territories with shared commercial (common taxes, trade and infrastructure based) and martial (common army based) paradigms. Instead of language, culture, history, race or plain geography. May be faulty! Apologies! Check out the off-server links for some explanatory articles. | Do read, comment and discuss. Share but beware! | Word Count: 1999 | Flesch Kincaid Grade Level: 5 |
Random Mythoscopy 