Date: 2009-03-13 13:27 Subject: Blast from the past - Chanakya Security: Public Mood: happy Tags: country, entertainment

This time I was catching up on Chanakya, the Doordarshan series originally aired in 1991. During that time, I was about 11 years old and could not comprehend the entire story. I was not able to judge the strength of the people during that time, the characters, the political situation and the issues then.

Now, having attained more maturity, am able to understand it much better.

Chanakya was a Political Science professor at the Takshashila university in the kingdom of Gandhaara. Originally from Pataliputra in Magadha kingdom, he was forced to move out of his place of birth due to the political unrest during the rule of the unjust leader Dhanananda. He took refuge and sought education in Takshashila, one of the very prominent universities of those times (around 400 BC).
During these times, Alexander, the Greek warrior in a bid to become the emperor of the world invaded the Indian subcontinent. Chanakya does not want to surrender his motherland to a Greek warrior and having stiff opposition from his adopted kingdom's ruler AmbhiRaj, approaches his parent kingdom Magadha. There he receives nothing but humiliation and apathy from Dhanananda.
He pledges to unite the nation to fight the Greek invaders and how he goes about his mission is the crux of the story.

The situation is not too different from the British rule of India. Only that the British were far more methodical in annexing the different parts of India and far more shrewd. It took a MK Gandhi to finally drive them out.

The thing that differs from Chanakya's realm and the 20th Century India is that, then, India was far more cohesive in terms of culture. 20th Century India had already faced too many invasions and too many dents on her cultural binding that it was much more difficult to unite her.

Coming back to the serial, the main thing I like about these DD serials is their Hindi vocabulary and also the purety of the language used. Not adulterated with Urdu, English, Punjabi and other language words, this is as pure as we can get. I absolutely loved it.  Dr. Chandraprakash Dwivedi, the writer-director and lead actor originally holds a medical degree, but the love for literature lead him to change his profession. I thought his expressions were a tad stiff but possibly suited the role as well.

Check out the following song from the serial, it comes at the time, when Chanakya and his students are on a mission to unify India.

हम करें राष्ट्र आराधन
हम करें राष्ट्र आराधन.. आराधन

तन से, मन से, धन से
तन मन धन जीवन से
हम करें राष्ट्र आराधन
हम करें राष्ट्र आराधन.. आराधन...

For the full song, you can check out this link.
This ignites the patriotic spirit like few other songs do.