Trending: Indian Mythology

The current trend in India is to read, write, see and make Indian mythological stories or historical epics preferably in fiction.  Year 2015 was marked by a Mahabharata based movie “Bahubali”. The movie was widely appreciated all over the globe and also has a sequel planned next year. A movie on “Mohenjo-Daro” will soon be released. Apart from Cinema, there are lots of television serials broadcasting mythology based serials… “Sia ke Ram”, “Devon ke dev Mahadev”, “Mahabharat”, “Ramayan”, “Krishna”, “Ganesh” and many more… In my childhood too, watching Ramanand Sagar's Ramayan and B. R Chopra’s Mahabhart was like a ritual every Sunday. It won’t be an exaggeration if I say that every kid born in 80s or 90s has seen one of these mythological serials in childhood. But these days its slightly different.. There is fiction… there is animation... in short, old story in a new package…  

This trend is also visible in literature. The age old Geeta (as it is J) or Ramayan or Mahbharat is outdated.. The new mythology books are mythological “Fictions” and are extremely popular. The people who used to read Sydney Sheldon or John Grisham or even Chetan Bhagat have now shifted to Amish Tripathi,  Devdutt Pattanaik and other writers who present or propagate mythological characters; most likely in Fiction. I myself, not being a vivid reader, have enjoyed reading a series on Shiva, books on Ram, Karna, Draupadi, even less popular characters like Vishwamitra and Parshu Ram,  in last couple of years. This is so much popular that Mythological fiction is soon becoming a seperate genre in itself.

Wondering why suddenly people are so interested in mythology?  What made this shift? Here is my take on it…

Whether we admit it or not, most of us believe in God. Being atheist is out of fashion anyway. No doubt, we are totally impressed with what science has done and what science can do, but we also know that the biggest scientists from West took clues from scriptures or were interested in our scriptures and our culture.

When we get to know that globally respected personalities like Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg visited Indian temples when they had a low tide in life, we feel pleasantly surprised... it gives some of us a feeling not less than an achievement. As a cherry on top, archaeologists found some monuments which lead us a step further in substantiating that the stories like Ramayana and Mahabharata are not just stories or poems.

Worldwide acceptance of Yoga and Ayurveda is like a celebration here. Whether we practice Yoga daily or not; we definitely celebrate International yoga day and take pride in its global celebration. In addition to Yoga and Ayurveda, Indian vedas also contain immense knowledge and philosophy of life.

In short, the clash between “science or god” has more or less ended with the outcome of “science AND god”. The end result is glorification of Indian traditions and culture. This encourages us to go back, discover and celebrate the treasure of our forefathers i.e. scriptures and mythological tales.

With this, those of us who enjoyed Sundays watching Ramayana and Mahabharata in childhood feel like reliving those fond memories… and authors timed the rising inquisitiveness perfectly.. with conviction... some try to understand, explore and discover new things from it… some read it only to get entertained.. whereas some try to understand divine philosophy of life…  The Indian mythology is anyway filled with lot of drama, adventure, suspense, philosophy, romance and fun… twist in the talesis surely entertaining… maybe that’s why this new trend…

What’s your view?… do comment…