I just finished reading Volume 1 of the Mahābhārata known as the “Adi Parva“. Mahābhārata is one of the two greatest epics of India, the other being Ramayana. The epic has Eighteen Volumes, each of about 300 pages of Sanskrit Poetry. The english translation I am reading is about 850 pages in length.

As most of my friends I have spent a lot of my childhood listening, reading and watching stories from the Mahābhārata. I remember waking up early on Sundays when I was a kid to watch an hour of the TV adaptation of the book (That TV show apparently holds the record for the most watched show ever!). The characters from the book, let it be the famous Arjuna or the divine Krishna or the giving Karna or the brave Abhimanyu or even the cunning Shakuni, were characters we knew even as kids. We grew up hearing their stories and understanding their greatness. In every sense, Mahābhārata has been and will always be a huge part of me.

I have always been in love with mythological stories. I should probably thank my grand-mother for that, she never hesitated to tell us the stories when we were kids. Stories that triggered our imaginations and left us in awe, how many ever times we heard them.

A few weeks back I felt the sudden urge to read the great epic. There were a lot of events in my life that precipitated this desire and I knew that this was one of the things I simply had to do. I had gifted a translation of the book to my friend Swetha a couple of years ago. Once I picked up the book from her place I was on a reading spree.

I tend to get very little time in the day which I can dedicate to reading. I usually choose the few minutes before I sleep each day but that is hardly enough. With this book it was different. As the story was unfolding I could not keep the book down. Sometimes I would have to force myself to go to sleep coz otherwise it would mess up my next day(I cant do without sleep :P ).

Personally this has been the best book I have ever read. I can take all those fun, thrilling and entertaining books I have read in the last few years and Mahābhārata simply stands out. Maybe it was the anticipation of each event in the book which had me hooked, all I know is I haven’t felt this happy reading a book ever before.

The first Volume talks about the birth of Beeshma, one of the pillars of the story of Mahābhārata and the ancestors of the Pandavas, the early life of the princes of the Kuru dynasty, their training and the adventures in their youth. The stories that I loved included: Beeshma’s vow, Birth of Radheya(Karna), Drona & Ekalavya and Draupadi’s swayamvara.

The story that I loved the most is the romantic story of Subhadra and Arjuna. This was one of the stories I had not heard before and the entire love story had me dumbfounded. Considering that I am a sucker for romantic stories, the idea of two people in love with each other having never met or spoken to each other, was something I had to enjoy.

Now I move onto the “Sabha Parva”, the second volume of the book. It is a comparitively shorter volume but has events in it which would define the fates of the heroes and the villains.