I am obsessed with hindu mythology and you will be seeing a lot of it being reflected in my thoughts and write-ups. So, here is my journey so far.

Also, reach out to me if any of you are as interested as I am in Ahalya’s truth or Shakuni’s dices.

They say every hindu household should have a copy of the Bhagwad Gita, and the Ramayana should be narrated time and again to keep the family on the path of righteousness and embed good qualities in our minds from a young age.

So naturally, I was told to watch every single episode of Ramayana very carefully even though father had narrated that story a hundred times!

He also shared with me some verses from the Gita every now and then, but I only remember, “Krishna said this; Krishna preached that” from those nights.

I was never told the story behind Krishna and Arjuna’s conversation, neither did we have a copy of the Mahabharata at home.

You see, it is a common belief that if a copy of that sacred saga is kept in the house, a war, a Mahabharata between the members of the house is prone to occur.

So, the kids were kept away from it but not the news channels reporting war-like events occurring across the globe.

Ironic.

My first encounter with Vyasa’s Mahabharata was when Star Plus made it into a show in 2014. I watched every episode religiously. Well, it still wasn’t discussed in the house.

But I truly fell in love with the divine epic in 2017, when I read The Palace of Illusions by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni.

Since then, I have read more than a dozen novels or one could say takes or even versions of the Mahabharata along with infinite articles, theories and analysis on the internet. I keep rewatching the show as well.

My keen interest made my father rediscover his love for it too. We have been discussing and debating every little detail of the tale ever-since.

I have always been a feisty kid but mother says my tongue has become sharper in the recent past. I get angry and annoyed faster.

Sometimes she jokingly points at my bookshelf filled with numerous books on Mahabharata and says its because of my obsession with the war of Kurukshetra, that I am constantly at war; sometimes with her, sometimes a teacher at school, sometimes my friends, and sometimes myself.

Now, I don’t know if I believe this myth.

Lets be honest, I have been a rebel without a cause ever since I can recall and I love fighting to prove my point. My sister and I get this from our great grandmother. I am also a teenager, my hormones are just as hay-wired as my opinions!

But I do truly believe that Nakul could talk to animals and Draupadi walked out of a fire and that Ashwathama is still roaming in the wilderness up north covered in blood and pus due to his curse.

So perhaps I do keep getting into fights because I am almost always reading or thinking about Mahabharata. I cannot dismiss a myth because I have believed every single unbelievable fable mythology has ever fed me.

My life is largely influenced by these mythical characters and tales.

Call me crazy for I dare to believe in these unrealistic stories because lets be honest, this realistic world we live in, is full of surprises and unbelievable incidents too.

Who knew a little bat could make the entire world stand-still?

Yours truly,
Jasmita Shah