Dharmakshetra

Dharma Kshetra, in Hindi (with English subtitles) is a brilliant adapatation of the Mahabharat. The events take place after the war after all the protagonists (except /Ashvattama) had died. It is set in the court of the divine arbiter Chitragupta.

One by one, the charcters of the epic; Bhishma, Drona, Vidura, Dhritarashtra, Sakuni, Dharmaraj, Bhim, Arjun, Nakul, Sahadev, Draupadi, Kunti, Gandhari, Duryodhan, Karn, Dushasan, Ashvattama and even Vedavyas are put in the dock to answer accusations levelled against them. The twenty-six episode serial ends with Bhagwan Shri Krishna himself explaining his actions, which some times looked dowright unethical.

No character in Mahabharat was perfect. Each one was a fallible being combating his or her personal demons and was a complex amalgam of nobility and meanness, forgiveness and vengefulness, love and rancor and sacrifice and greed.

The epic is a macrocosm of our own lives- layered with contradictions and conflicts. The writing and acting were uniformly good, occassionally even brilliant- Duryodhan and Karn were outstanding.

Dharma Kshetra is a tour-de-force, a really great small screen production.

It reinforced my belief that Mahabharat in sheer sweep and grandeur eclipses Homer's Iliad and Odysseus. I was also exposed to nuances in the epic, which I had not been aware off earlier.