Wanted to give the Pandavas a second chance at life, says author Trisha Das

In her newest book, author Trisha Das moves the focus from Draupadi, Amba and Kunti to the Pandava brothers. The Misters Kuru: A Return to Mahabharata, published by HarperCollins, is a follow-up to the novel, Ms Draupadi Kuru: After the Pandavas, set in modern-day Delhi.

Trisha, who is the sister of actor-comedian Vir Das, has also written the books The Mahabharata Re-imagined, The Art of the Television Interview and the internationally acclaimed How to Write a Documentary Script.

The documentary filmmaker won the National award for Best Educational/Motivational/Instructional Film for the short, Fiddlers on the Thatch (2003), an uplifting tale of the students at Gandhi Ashram School, Kalimpong, West Bengal, whose lives were transformed by learning Western classical music.

The filmmaker-author spoke to Cinestaan.com in a telephonic conversation about her return to the world of the Mahabharat and why she chose to give the characters a second chance. Das also shared the possibility of her books being adapted on the screen. Excerpts:

Congratulations on the new book. What inspired you to imagine this world when you first began writing the series?

I think I have always been part of the world. I have been very familiar with the Mahabharat since I was a kid. I read all the abridged versions and I have also read both the English translations etc, so I kind of always was within the world. But as I kept reading, you know how sometimes you read a book and you see plot holes, I saw a lot of those in the Mahabharat, just from my point of view.

I thought wouldn’t it be awesome if I could take these characters and give them a second chance at life, see how they would do things differently, because they weren’t always given choices in the Mahabharat? I thought it would be cool to see how they would respond to a different world and circumstances. That’s where the idea originated from, particularly [for] the women, because obviously the women went through a lot of crap in the Mahabharat.

When you reimagined all the characters from the Mahabharat, that was your aim, to put them in this modern world and see how they would function in this scenario?

Yes, and also what they would do if they were given a second chance at life, based on their personalities and character traits. It would just be interesting to explore that.

What can we expect in The Misters Kuru, now that the focus shifts slightly to the Pandava brothers?

Obviously the issues are different. I think Draupadi, taking her into a feminist space was a very natural progression of her story. In terms of the Pandavas, it’s completely different. They were kings and warriors and had a lot of control in the Mahabharat, but they also made a lot of bad decisions, questionable decisions. Let’s face it, they were always packed together as a group and as individuals they weren’t given much choice how to lead their lives. They were brought up in a way to fulfil their duty, as it were, to take over the kingdom.

But actually, when you think about them as characters and their interests, likes and dislikes, and personalities, you realize they could have done a lot of very different things, just given different circumstances. So I thought, in a lot of ways, it wasn’t just the women who were not given choices. When I started thinking about the Pandavas, I realized that there were issues there as well.

These days, writing about Hindu mythology can be controversial with readers objecting to certain alterations. Were you ever worried about that when penning your novels?

The Mahabharat is so different, depending on where you go in the country and who tells the story. If you go to Gujarat, they will tell you about the Bheem Mahabharat. Or you go to Madhya Pradhesh and they will tell you that’s the tree where Arjun hung his weapons. You go somewhere else and they are like oh, Draupadi cried here so there was a river, all kinds of stuff.

There is no one set Mahabharat and, unfortunately, people seem to think there is, and a large part of that is the BR Chopra series that ran on Doordarshan. I think that was the education. But at the end of the day, that is just one scriptwriter’s point of view. There is no one way to think about it and I’m just trying to say through these books, let’s keep an open mind and see what else we can do with them. Let’s have fun, let’s not take ourselves so seriously all the time.

Ms Draupadi Kuru is also going to be adapted into a feature film. Can you share something on that?

The talks are on right now. I can’t really reveal a lot of details. But there has been a lot of interest to adapt it to the screen, and as you know, in 2016, it was nominated for the MAMI Book to Screen award; there has been a lot of interest since then. Fingers crossed!

Have you imagined any actors in the roles?

I have imagined a lot of actors in these roles and, frankly, every time I see a new film and somebody strikes me, I [think] oh! And somebody else comes along in a different film, and honestly at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter who plays it, as much as it matters that person carry the character traits and also have the kind of charisma. I would love to see a very charismatic, strong Draupadi and not stylized but authentic portrayals.

You have also directed several documentary films, including the award-winning Fiddlers on the Thatch. How has it been making the switch from non-fiction to fiction?

I still love non-fiction. I haven’t really made a switch (laughs). I still write non-fiction as well, and I still write scripts and I have written two non-fiction books as well, so I can’t say I have made the switch. I love documentaries and writing non-fiction and I hope to continue doing so.

Are you planning to make another documentary in the future?

Right now, circumstances dictate I can’t, but yes, in the future, absolutely, I hope to.

Will you also continue with the world of Mahabharat?

With the Kuru family, I think right now, I had always thought of it as a two-part series. So I’m not looking at writing another book. However, I think on screen, it can be adapted to be many [films]. The possibilities for stories are endless.