Week 7 Reading Diary A: Peter Brook's The Mahabharata

1. I liked the mask they used to characterize Ganesha. It was beautiful and I loved the soundtrack that played in the background. The tinkling from the headdress on the mask added to the music. I really liked the scene where Vyasa began to dictate the Mahabharata to Ganesha.

The Mahabharata play by Peter Brook: image from Wikimedia Commons

2. I liked the story of Satyavati again. I did not realize in my first read through that Vyasa was Satyavati's son, so that clarification was helpful to me.

3. I like the way the narrators are characterized. Their explanations are helping me to understand the story more. 

4. I like the scene where the Pandavas are born. The narrations and the dialogue are helping me make connections in the story that I did not make before. I like how some of the traits of the Pandavas mirror the traits of their parent gods. I did not really think of that before.

5. I like the diversity in the cast. Even though it's set in India, their is a lot of ethnic diversity in the cast and I think that adds a universality to the story that I think is cool.

6. I thought the story of Gandhari wearing a veil because her husband, Dhritarashtra, is blind. I didn't remember that aspect of the Mahabharata and the rest of her story was also interesting. The birth of Duryodhana is such an interesting story! The 'ball of flesh' scene kind of freaked me out, but it was so cool. Gandhari and Dhritarashtra refuse to kill their first-born, even though they are told that sacrificing him will allow their line to continue.

7. Drona makes Arjuna promise that if they ever meet on the battlefield, Arjuna must fight to kill him.

8. Karna comes to Drona's lessons and he seems to shoot just as well as Arjuna. Karna is Kunti's son, too, and Karna confronts Arjuna, saying that they are going to fight. Karna cannot tell them his mother or his fathers name and so he is told to leave. 

9. Duryodhana makes Karna the king of Anga and they decide to be friends forever. Karna swears that he will kill Arjuna one day.

10. Draupadi becomes the wife of all five of the Pandavas.

11. Ganesha makes a speech about the gods. He talks about Vishnu coming down as a human named Krishna and then he removes his mask, revealing that he is Krishna. 

12. Duryodhana gambles with Yudishthira and he loses.

I enjoyed this version of the Mahabharata. It really helped me straighten out who the characters were and what they did. I had kind of a hard time keeping them straight when I was reading the PDE version of the Mahabharata, but being able to see their faces really helped me understand the story and hammer out some of the details I missed the first time around. I got this from Peter Brook's Mahabharata film.