" The fear of death makes animals fight for their survival. Might becomes right as only the fit survive. With strength and cunning territories are established and pecking orders enforced. Thus, the law of the jungle comes into being. Animals have no choice but to subscribe to it. Humans, however, can choose to accept, exploit or reject this law.
Thanks to our larger brain, we can imagine and create a world where we can look beyond ourselves, include others, and make everyone feel wanted and safe. We can, if we wish to, establish a society where the mighty care for the meek, and where resources are made available to help even the unfit thrive. This is dharma.
Unfortunately, imagination can also amplify fear, and make us so territorial that we withhold resources, exploit the weak and eat even when well-fed. This is adharma. If dharma enables us to outgrow the beast in us, then adharma makes us worse than animals. If dharma takes us towards divinity, then adharma fuels the demonic.
The Kauravas are stubbornly territorial before the war. The Pandavas struggle to be generous after the war. Adharma is thus an eternal temptation, while dharma is an endless work in progress that validates our humanity."

These are words from the final chapter of the book on Mahabharata by Devdutt Pattanaik and they quite aptly sum up the essence of the book. Rather I should say that of the epic called Mahabharata. First a word about the author's contribution. He has managed to present the humongous piece of literature in a concise manner. The text is lucid and he has tried to simplify the confusing tangles of relationships. He keeps providing us short revisions everytime he reintroduces a character in subsequent chapters. And this comes in handy as remembering the lineage if each character is a pain. It's like the desi Game of Thrones. Everybody is related to everybody in some complex way and there are too many bodies there to remember. Plus there is karma which keeps coming back at intervals. So by the time it hits back at someone, you are way ahead in the story and recollecting the back story is difficult. He doesn't complicate things by showing off his vocabulary and keeps the language simple (I guess that's the only reason why Chetan Bhagat has such a following in India I guess. But I doubt whether he does that to hide his vocabulary or the lack of it). Plus that was the very reason the scriptures were written in Sanskrit so that only a small portion of the population could understand them. I don't know how accurate his version is but it's a book that can give you a gist of the story in the simplest possible way. There must be many other authentic translations but then as they say Devil is in the details. It would have been difficult for me to interpret all the plots and subplots if they were presented in a more complex manner. That's just my opinion though. He has also provided these small snippets at the end of each chapter giving us interesting facts and revising those complex subplots. Also even though it's labelled as an " illustrated retelling " , the illustrations don't serve much purpose

Coming to the more important part. The epic itself. I am otherwise an atheist and was sceptical about reading the Mahabharata. But then it's nowhere close to what I thought. It's not about gods and goddess. And to contrary to belief , it's not about the Kurukshetra war. That definitely forms an important part of the story but it's not the central theme. In fact it's a medium through which the central theme is elaborated i.e. Dharma and karma. And by dharma it never means blind faith and superstitions as projected by some of the present day " dharmik babas" . It means the righteous path, what is the ideal way of life. It's not that reading this has transformed me at a spiritual level , but does make you think about so many things. Keeping aside the spiritual part of it, it makes you aware of how awesome our forefathers were. Compiling such a huge book and carrying forward it's legacy through so many generation is a tremendous task. All this in the world without computers (They didn't have any of the cloud drive technology where they could back up their data at regular intervals. One hundred thousand verses over a span of 18 chapters). All the stories have such good morals and which are quite appropriate even in the Kaliyug. Plus their knowledge of astrology and other life sciences is fascinating. During the war there are these arrows which multiply as they travel. Some postulate that the ancient Indians were aware of nuclear weapons and this was an example of a nuclear fission reaction. I think that is a bit far fetched, but you never know. The other interesting part and the one that I liked that the actual stories are way different than what they have been presented to us. Why have always been told the story of how Kunti asked Arjuna to share Draupadi equally with his brothers but then there are other reasons to it too. Here it is :

"In her past life, Draupadi had invoked Shiva and asked for a husband who was honest, a husband who was strong, a husband who was skilled, a husband who was handsome and a husband who was knowledgeable. Shiva had said, ‘You will get all five men that you want for no single man, except God. In another past life, Draupadi was Nalayani, the wife of a Rishi called Maudgalya. He had a terrible disease that made him cough and spit all day and covered his skin with scales and rashes. Still Nalayani served him as a devoted wife. Pleased with her unstinting service, the sage offered her a boon. Nalayani requested that he use his ascetic powers to indulge all her sexual desires. Accordingly, Maudgalya took the forms of many different men, some human, some divine, all handsome, and made love to her in many different ways. After indulging in sexual pleasures for many years, Maudgalya decided it was time to renounce the world. But Nalayani was not satisfied. ‘Who will make love to me after you are gone?’ she asked. Disgusted by her insatiable lust, the Rishi cursed her that in her next life she would be the wife of many men."

There are other interesting subplots too. Like how Shakuni was not wicked de novo and why he did the things that he did. What made him limp. How each of the Pandavas had multiple wifes and children and how each of them plays some part in the battle. How Krishna twisted so many rules and used his powers to help Pandavas win the war. How The Pandavas too lost everything at the end of it. How the epic doesn't end with the war , it ends with Yudhishtira realising the true meaning of dharma. And that's what the central theme of the epic is. How each action of every character is governed by their good or bad karma. How each of the so called good characters have bad traits which we never knew. And in the end why the Pandavas in spite of being the good people end up in Naraka and the Kauravas end up in Swarga.

All in all, it's a good book and more importantly the story of Mahabharata is something which each of us should read at least once. It won't change your spiritual thinking in any way but it would definitely make you proud about the knowledge and legacy of ancient Indians.

P.S. I read books once in a while, not that frequently, so these were just my amateur thoughts about this book. There might be better books and people who read often would better be able to tell more about the quality of the writing and it's accuracy. I personally like something which I can read uninterrupted without referring to my English dictionary frequently. Suggestions are always welcome.

PPS: Watch this guy talk about ancient Indian wisdom