Piyush Roy
Chakravartin Ashoka Samrat on the Colors channel, TV ratings indicate is one of the most popular serials at the moment. Among genres, historicals have always been a personal attraction. History was my favourite subject at school, and I am a firm believer of the saying that ‘those who (individuals, nations and civilisations) forget their past are bound to repeat its follies in the future’. Also with most family members and relatives watching the show during my current India visit, by default, I got co-opted into watching this dinner time epic. Further research revealed that noted journalist-turned-author Ashok Banker (a successful veteran at adapting histro-mythical narratives to contemporary tastesand sensibilities) was involved in the conceptualisation and writing of the show. The show itself boasts of period sensitive set design, fairly authentic costumes and impressive performances from most of its drama drivers – especially Sameer Dharmadhikari (emperor Bindusara), Suzanne Bernert (queen Helena), Mohan Joshi (Chanakya), and Dhoom 3 discovery and the lead protagonist at the moment, Siddharth Nigam, who plays a teen Ashok.
The ongoing week in the show has been seeing a peaking in its narrative’s biggest dramatic turn so far, with the national level gold-medallist gymnast turned actor, Nigam showing ample acting chops beyond those photoshopped body packs. Ashok finally learns the truth of his birth that he is the son of emperor Bindusara, and the serial’s writers milk every significant onscreen emotional churnreference, past and present, to heighten his personal drama. He performs a long Deewar like climactic monologue (remember Amitabh Bachchan’s iconic ‘Aaj khush to bahut hoge tum’ scene) before a lingam in the wild a la the establishing moment for Prabhas in Baahubali. The show’s cinematic inspirations and ambitions however have not been limited to those two only. Given its fetish for unwanted adventure feats and an obsession with bedroom drama led by plotting women, it has emerged as a curious mix of Game of Thronesand the Saas-Bahu serials. Suzanne, playing the show’s lead ‘evil’ force, Queen Helena, is a valuable actor addition to the ‘vamp’ legacy of a Lalita Pawar or Bindu from the big screen of yore.
To give the show its due, though extremely long drawn, it does show ample potential to become a ‘desi’ Game of Thrones. But that’s it – sadly, it just shows – but doesn’t do anything to achieve that potential! The week gone by, when it was finally close to showing some dare to close a too long drawn, unconvincing and unnecessary drama of secrecy around the true identity of its lead protagonist, it once again lapsed into the lethargy of procrastination and its ‘positive’ characters doing nothing.
And I am not even talking about the ‘history’ in this historical epic. Yes, the show begins with a long disclaimer whizzing past that it’s based on imaginations filling up the gaps between heard stories and legends. But why? Ample documentation on Ashoka abounds in the then traveller memoirs from the West and the East, reliable ancient person and state histories, and all the major religious traditions of the era – Jainism, Hinduism and Buddhism. Moreover, Ashoka also is that rare emperor from ancient India, who has left maximum, still existing, detailed edict accounts of himself and his empire. Even if a content maker is reimagining and recreating history, there has to be a mention of some historical texts, references, and the like, he or she is dipping in, to locate that imagery. Chakravartin Ashok Samrat doesn’t mention it sources anywhere on its credits, and as a result crudely and with little compunction distorts the life and times of one of the greatest icons of Indian history and civilisation.
If you want to make a kitchen drama of squabbling women in costume, feel free to do so by all means, but why defame someone whose legacy has become a part of the symbol of the modern Indian state! This insult of history, I would say deserves a greater reason for ban than harmless pornography, because here you are feeding a generation of young, impressionable minds and uninformed adult audiences,blatant lies beneaththe garb of history, while making bad scholarship and lack of research look cool.
To list a few, furiously contestable obvious distortions – every historical account and memoir of ancient India and Greece mentions the Chandragupta Maurya and Helena story as one of the greatest romances of the ancient world, with the latter being a lover of India and its culture. Her father, Seleucus Nicator, post his peace treaty with Chandragupta Maurya, was gifted acavalry force of 500 elephants, which not only enhanced the power of his army, but also contributed to retaining him as a busy, political force in Persia and beyond until his death. In the show that great ruleris seen as a perennial resident in faraway Magadha (modern day Bihar), content to play a support part in the palace struggles of few unhappy queens! Really? And why the Indian ruler of the then mightiest Indian kingdom, Bindusara, entrusts his army in the care of a random Persian satrap with no mention in history? Chanakya of course was never the passive, apprehensive and constantly dithering-to-act senior courtier that he has been reduced to.For most part of Bindusara’s reign like that of his father Chandragupta Maurya, Chanakya was the prime minister equivalent and aninfluence of reckon with ample administrative impact in the affairs of the day.
Freedom of expression is a fundamental right guaranteed by the Indian constitution, but for those articulating it from a position that can influence, it should come with responsibility too. It’s high time we had some censorship on the far more accessible small screen (vis-à-vis cinema), from peddling damning distortions that defame the dead and reduce an extremely necessary discipline like history into dramatic gossip. If you want to show fiction, please show it with all passion and imagination, just don’t lend to your protagonist, the name of a living, historical icon.
