My parents have been rewatching The Mahabharata, the 1988 TV series that faithfully dramatizes the longest story ever told (the 93 chapters + Prelude in The Brotherhood is a homage to the 94 episodes in the series!). Since I’ve been busy finishing The Dance Towards Death, doing library stuff, and occasionally watching films/reading, I’ve only been able to rewatch parts of it (have seen it many times, btw its other productions are crap!) and of course be very annoying in my questioning of its substance to my mother, who is the most knowledgeable person I know of its content in its multiplicity of forms. There’s no question it’s not only the longest and one of the oldest epics in history, but also, by far, the greatest, and certainly the most influential on my own narratives, particularly The Brotherhood Chronicle, which is probably why there’s so much reference to it throughout the epic trilogy (as I’ve mentioned in many readings, the mythologies of the past are referred to write a mythology of the present). The older Ramayana is simplistic drivel in comparison; if only Homer and Plato had lived in the same era, or been fused into the same person, the ancient Greeks could have combined its action with its philosophical questioning; the Old Testament, while full of interesting stories, is also mostly a bunch of “begats”; the New Testament has too many miracles; Virgil, Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Milton, and others have their great merits, but again, nowhere near its depths. Faulkner has a wider range of stylistics, but his specific concern for the South, and the introspection and specific obsessions of his characters makes him fall a bit short, and Balzac, while comparable in his output, is too concerned with Parisian interests too. Only Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy perhaps compare, in terms of their totality of works, and maybe if War and Peace was fused into The Brothers Karamazov, it could be on its level, somewhat. I could go on and on, but, The Mahabharata is so great it really has to be watched (don’t worry, this version has subtitles) to be fully appreciated. You can also read it, but good luck, it is 10 times the length of The Iliad and The Odyssey combined, as it has so many subplots and small stories within its great primary narrative. My only issue is The Bhagavad Gita itself. As great as it is, as with other “religious” works, I can’t possibly see anyone living by it literally. For example, Krishna repeatedly tells Arjuna that one should do one’s birth caste duty (like warrior for example) even if one is dreadfully bad at it, and some else of a different caste is good at it. I mean, really??? How could any society survive in such a way? Thankfully in America we have a choice of profession and can even change them up (in my case, I’ve chosen multiple ones!) If you don’t know what I’m referring to, feel free to dive into the work! I also have to say my great appreciation for my parents in how they raised me, both instilling a remarkably good knowledge of my heritage and the great mythological and philosophical traditions of our past (pretty good for someone born in the USA, anyway), while also making me free to be as American as I wanted (unlike many Hindu kids (I’m actually agnostic, btw) I was allowed to eat meat at an early age for example) and open to all other cultures and types of learning. As a result, not only do I feel like I have good knowledge of one of the great cultural traditions on earth but also deeply and proudly American at the same time and able to constantly explore the endless multicultural learning and discovery experiences of NYC and the world, as much as there may be issues to all these realities that I explore in my books. Anyway, check it out!

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0158417/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_2