My purpose in this paper is to discuss the use of myth & mythological narratives in Shashi Tharoor’s THE GREAT INDIAN NOVEL that synchronises the epic narratives of the Mahabharata & the twentieth century political history of India. It covers the period of Indian history from the advent of Gandhi as an undisputed leader of freedom struggle to the emergency rule of Indira Gandhi.

Shashi Tharoor’s THE GREAT INDIAN NOVEL (1989) has been inspired by a sense of urgency and outrage on account of general erosion of values and norms in the post-partition Indian poility. The author seems to have been most upset by the darkest period in the history of free India, i.e. the Emergency promulgated in 1975, and conceptualizes that experience into an existential riddle to be solved through the understanding of a parallel happening in the in the remote Indian past.

Shashi Tharoor carves out a niche for himself through the replacement of a peace meal convenient, multi-form structure of fantasy by an elaborate & integrated corpus of myth, undoubtedly Tharoor schematically revives a vital chord in the common consciousness, & anticipates the direction of events with respect to that. It is this reawakening of this common consciousness that is significant in the entire construct of his craft, because of which Tharoor’s history becomes a transcendental vision of the past and an added facility to the understanding of the past by capitalizing on in an inherent culture resources. It is within the ambit of this consciousness that the novelist uses myth. Tharoor does not scan history intuitively but enlightened with available cultural motif. Even if man evolves, he retains the features of identity reflected in the cultural mooring of the past. Tharoor tries to come to terms with his present retrospectively. The Indian mythology in its stupendous diversity provides many motives to correlate various aspects of human life. The Mahabharata is a unitary national myth that perceives human life in totality & supplies for Tharoor’s novel. The most appropriate allegorical background to project the contemporary Indian situation. He uses the mythical setting of the Mahabharata to foreground the eternal present that is the continuance of the historical process from India’s remote past to the present. It corresponds to reality only obliquely, howsoever deliberate the desire to question the present may be, Tharoor says that the official histories of nation are no better than hagiographies and suggests that the vision of an individual recollected from memory can also participate in and contribute to the making of national history.

MANEESH RAI

What are we here for?

Have you ever pondered over the fact what are we here for? Why god has chosen us to be a part of the modern world? The modern man is so busy in the rat race of modern life that he hardly gets time to think over the questions which I have raised at the beginning of the post.

What I feel is that surely we are here to complete some grave purpose of God. Our existence is surely a meaningful decision of god…it is completely up to us how we make our life meaningful & worthwhile…

I consider that man should take his life to be a canvas…it is needed that on the canvas of life with the choicest colours…one should paint a unique picture…one that is outstanding, out worldly…this painting should be made in such a way that it should reflect the unique identity of the painter…the painting should be the return gift to God as well as to one’s parents who have made the existence of the person possible…

Make your life such a canvas that the painting which you draw on it, by taking the colours from life, prove to be a unique blend of innocence as well as wisdom.