Crocker was the Australian High Commissioner to India during much of Nehru's tenure as prime minister, and his is a sharply perceptive but affectionate portrait of Nehru as man and politician. While on Nehru, a quick recommendation: Walter Crocker's short, lucid biography Nehru: A Contemporary's Estimate, first published in 1966, just two years after Nehru's death, but now reprinted by Random House India with a foreword by Ramachandra Guha.
BHARAT EK KHOJ OM PURI TRAIN SERIAL
(Note: excellent as this serial is, it isn't exactly faithful to Discovery of India – instead it uses the book's framework and Nehru's commentary to examine various facets of India's heterogeneous culture.) This scene is directly taken from Bhasa's play "Urubhangam" ("The Shattered Thigh"), which I mentioned in this post.Īlso enjoyed little touches such as Roshan Seth's Jawaharlal Nehru primly stepping over broken weapons and other debris as he walks right onto the deserted battlefield before settling down to explain aspects of the epic to the viewer. Notable too are these two clips that show the dying moments of a repentant Duryodhana (played by Om Puri), in the company of Balarama and Ashwatthama as well as his grieving family – his blind parents, his wives and his son Durjaya. It draws on various artistic interpretations of the Mahabharata over the centuries, including a Kathakali performance that depicts, with gory relish, Bheema tearing out Duhshasana's entrails and using them to bind Draupadi's hair. Almost needless to say, Benegal's presentation of some of the epic's key scenes, spread over two episodes, is much earthier than the B R Chopra opus (which, incidentally, is also available on YouTube now). Haven't seen all the YouTube clips yet, but I've got through the Mahabharata ones along with a few others. (What I did love, and made sure never to miss, was Vanraj Bhatia's beautiful soundtrack for the opening credits, accompanied by words from the famous creation verses in Book 10 of the Rig Veda, which are a rare instance of agnosticism/sceptical inquiry in ancient scripture.) But I'm enjoying it now. I shamefacedly admit to not following the show regularly when it first aired 20 years ago – it was too subdued for my taste. Shortly after this, I found that several episodes of Bharat ek Khoj, Shyam Benegal's visualisation of Jawaharlal Nehru's Discovery of India, are now up on YouTube.
BHARAT EK KHOJ OM PURI TRAIN TV
First I discovered Shemaroo DVDs of the beloved TV serial Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi, which used to be a Friday-evening fixture in the mid-1980s. To him, there is something unique about the continuity of a cultural tradition through 5000 years of an unbroken history.In recent weeks things have been happening to revive happy memories of my Doordarshan-cocooned childhood.
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Slowly, the long panorama of India’s history unfolds itself before him with its ups and downs, its triumphs and tragedies. At Fatehpur-Sikri, he almost hears Akbar converse with the learned of all faiths. The inscriptions on the Ashoka Pillars of stone make their inscriptions speak to him. At Saranath, near Banaras, he could almost hear the Buddha’s first sermon. He sees the lovely buildings in Agra and Delhi where every stone tells its story of India’s past. He visits old monuments Ajanta, Ellora and the Elephanta Caves. India unfolds with its waterfalls, rivulets and seas, with her richness of life and its renunciation, of growth and decay, of birth and death. He wanders over to the Himalayas and sees the mighty rivers - the remote Brahmaputra, the Yamuna, and the Ganga - that flow from this great mountain barrier into the plains of India, from their source to the sea.
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Travelling by train, the landscape and the landmarks flash past his eyes. Bharat Mata was essentially these millions of people, and victory to her meant victory to these people! The mountains, the rivers, the forests, and the broad fields which gave them food, but what counted ultimately was the people like them who were spread out all over this vast land. What earth was it? Their particular village patch, or all the patches in the district or province, or in the whole of India? Nehru would then endeavour to explain that India was all that they had thought, and much more.
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At last a vigorous jat, wedded to the soil from immemorial generations, said that it was the Dharti (the good earth) of India that they meant. Occasionally, as Nehru reached a gathering, a great roar of welcome would greet him-‘Bharat Mata-ki Jai’! He would ask the crowd unexpectedly what they meant by that cry, I who was this ‘Bharat Mata’, whose victory they wanted? His question would surprise them, and then, not knowing what to answer, they would look at each other.
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The scene opens with a panoramic visual of India and its colourful landscape. Summary: Episode 01 (Bharat Mata Ki Jai / भारत माता की जय)īased on Jawaharlal Nehru's "Discovery of India"