Mahabharat (2013 TV series)

Mahabharat
Genre	historical[1] drama
Created by	Siddharth Kumar Tewary
Based on	Mahabharat
Written by	Sharmin Joseph Radhika Anand Anand Vardhan Mihir Bhuta Siddharth Kumar Tewary
Directed by	Siddharth Anand Kumar Amarprith G Mukesh Kumar Singh Kamal Monga Loknath Pandey
Creative director(s)	Amol surve
Starring	Saurabh Raj Jain Pooja Sharma Shaheer Sheikh Aham Sharma
Narrated by	Saurabh Raj Jain
Opening theme	Hai katha Sangraam Ki
Ending theme	Mahabharat
Composer(s)	Ajay-Atul Ismail Darbar
Country of origin	India
Original language(s)	Hindi
No. of seasons	28[2]
No. of episodes	270[2]
Production
Producer(s)	Siddharth Kumar Tewary Gayatri Gil Tewary Rahul Kumar Tewary
Production location(s)	Umbergaon, Gujarat
Editor(s)	Paresh Shah
Camera setup	multi camera
Running time	Episode→1: 40 minutes; Episode→2-11: 20 mins; Episode→12-267: 22 mins[3]
Production company(s)	Swastik Productions
Distributor	Star India
Release
Original network	StarPlus
Picture format	576i (SDTV) 1080i (HDTV)
Original release	16 September 2013 (2013-09-16) – 16 August 2014 (2014-08-16)
External links
Production website

Mahabharat is an Indian historical^[4] series based on the ancient Indian Sanskrit epic Mahabharat.^{[5][6][7][8][9]} It aired from 16 September 2013 to 16 August 2014 on Star Plus.

The show will be re-aired on Star Bharat from 5 August 2018 every Sunday at 8pm IST because of its popularity.^[10]

It was produced by Swastik Productions Pvt. Ltd starring Saurabh Raj Jain as Shri Krishna, Shaheer Sheikh as Arjun, Pooja Sharma as Draupadi, Aham Sharma as Karna, Arav Chowdhary as Bhishma, Arpit Ranka as Duryodhan

Plot

Mahabharat presents the story of the throne of Hastinapur, the kingdom ruled by the Kuru clan where the Kauravs and the Pandavs brothers compete for rulership. Both Duryodhan and Yudhisthir claim to be first in line to inherit the throne. Duryodhan, younger than Yudhisthir, the eldest Pandav.

Mahabharat; a story of love, hatred, philosophies, dread, regret, anger, justice, injustice, power, insecurities, support, betrayal. In a true sense, Mahabharat is a story of life. The central idea to be noted is that Mahbharat presents all its character in a realism, much unlike to idealism. It presents the human nature and human life. Mahabharat truly is a story of demise and rejuvenation. And, it all started with a wish.

Satyavati, a fisherman's daughter {matsya:fish kanya: girl) wished to gain power. She wished the world to be at her feet. Her belief that, "though our eyes are small, they can glimpse the entire sky, then, though our hands are small, they can take over the entire world"; a crooked philosophy in a sense.

The first episode points out that when Shantanu was sitting on a boat and Satyavati was rowing, a golden fish( an implicaion for power and wealth) came to the view. Satyavati tried to catch it, much like her desire to catch immense power. As she caught the fish, her hands bled, signifying how her thirst for power will bleed her. Satyavati, though incredibly in love with King Shantanu, she thirsted and lusted over power and wealth more.

As the story Devrath, Shantanu and Ganga's son; an impeccable warrior, and Parshuram's disciple is obligated to oath celibacy in order to fulfill his father's happiness. Satyavati refused to enter the palace given that she had to take up of the position of a 'step-mother of the king'. Devrath's integral oath of celibacy earns him the name Bhisma. Bhisma oaths to forever stay a 'servant; to the throne of Hastinapur. Shocked and astonished by the intensity of the sacrifice Bhisma made for Shantanu, he grants Bhisma the boon of 'ichhya-mrityu' which meant that until and unless Bhisma was ever pushed to the point of willingness of death, he would never die.

Bhisma gave up his deserving throne and Satyavati took over the kingdom as 'Rajmaata' (Mother Queen) after her husband died years later, as her son Vichitravirya went to the paths of being an alcoholic and heavy dependency on Bhisma as his elder brother.

Satyavati, precisely worried about her husband's passed kingdom decides that if not Vichtiravirya, then his future son will be capable of handling the kingdom. Hence, she decides to get him married. As Vichitravirya, a drunkard is physically and mentally unable to go fetch a wife for himself in the swayamvaras, Bhisma takes it upon himself to bring a wife for him.

Later, in Salwa Kingdom, the three princesses Amba, Ambika and Ambalika are presented for swayamvara, although Amba had already planned to get married to a groom of her choice. As an enraged Bhisma enters the swayamvara, no one dares to fight against him and hence, he wins over the three princesses and proceeds to take them to Hastinapur to get them married. Amba, enraged and furious that she did not get to choose the groom she wished demands release from Bhisma, which he rightfully provied. But, a taken Amba from the swayamvara, considered 'another man's property' is refused to be accepted by her lover.

In Hastinapur, Ambika and Ambalika's wedding takes place with Vichitravirya. Amba out of fury enters the Palace hall of Hastinapur and asks justice. She is given the choice to marry Vichitravirya like her sisters and become the queen of Hastinapur, but a virtuous Amba demands Bhisma to marry her a it was Bhisma who unwillingly 'won' her in the swaymavara. But, Bhisma due to his vow of celibacy refuses to marry her. This leads to Amba taking steps such a asking Parshuram and Lord Shiva for justice upon which Shiva grants her the boon of rebirth with memory of past life and a written fate to be the 'reason of death of Bhisma'. Amba is later born in Panchal Kingdom as Shikhandani.

In Kuntibhoj, Princess Kunti, sister of Vasudev obtained a boon from sage Durvasa, where she could invoke any deity and could bear his child. Out of child-like curiosity, she decided to test the boon and uttered the mantra calling upon the Sun god and was handed a baby, Karna. Kunti, an unwed mother, set Karna afloat on the river Ganga with a heavy heart, in order to avoid the embarrassment of having a child before marriage to her father and the kingdom. After her marriage to Pandu, Kunti invoked other deities and had her sons, Yudhishtir, Bhim, Arjun, Nakul and Sahadev(from Madri). Neither Karna, nor the Pandavs knew the true identity of Karna until the end of the Kurukshetra War. Karna fought against misfortune throughout his life, and was often ill-treated as he was the son of a charioteer.(Adirath, a charioteer and his wife Radha found Karna on the banks of river Ganga and raised him as their own.) Duryodhan, the mortal enemy of the Pandavs was the only person who supported Karna, even when the Pandav brothers insulted him for being a skilled archer while belonging to a lower caste. Thus Karna made a vow to protect Duryodhan throughout his lifetime and fought on his behalf against the Pandavs in the Kurukshetra War.

When Bhishma asked for Gandhari's hand in marriage for his blind nephew Dhritarashtra, her brother Shakuni got furious. But he later agreed when Bhishma persuaded them that Dhritrashtra would be the future king of Hastinapur. During the Coronation Ceremony; Dhritrashtra's younger brother Pandu was made the king with the high interfluence of Vidur(Dhritrashtra's another younger brother).

Shakuni felt that he was cheated and so he swore to himself that he would destroy the Kuru race. He sowed the seeds of the climactic battle during the adolescence of the Kauravs(Sons of Dhritarashtra) and the Pandavs(Sons of Pandu) by poisoning the mind of Duryodhan; the eldest Kaurav against the Pandavs.

This results in the Kurukshetra War where Shri Krishna imparts Bhagwad Gita to his Pandav cousin Arjun. The battle saw the deaths of Bhishma, Karna among many. All the sons of Dhritarashtra and Gandhari, died in the war.

Cast

• Saurabh Raj Jain as Krishna/Vishnu
• Shaheer Sheikh as Arjun
• Aham Sharma as Karna
• Pooja Sharma as Draupadi
• Aarav Chowdhary as Bhishma
• Praneet Bhat as Shakuni
• Rohit Bharadwaj as Yudhisthir
• Saurav Gurjar as Bheem
• Arpit Ranka as Duryodhan
• Vin Rana as Nakul
• Lavanya Bhardwaj as Sahadev
• Nirbhay Wadhwa as Dushasan
• Thakur Anoop Singh as Dhritarashtra
• Riya Deepsi as Gandhari
• Shafaq Naaz as Kunti
• Naveen Jingar as Vidura
• Nissar Khan as Dronacharya
• Ankit Mohan as Ashwatthama
• Tarun Khanna as Balram
• Vibha Anand as Subhadra and Yogmaya
• Pallavi Subhash as Rukmini
• Ratan Rajput as Amba
• Sayantani Ghosh as Satyavati
• Kanishka Soni as Parashvi
• Shikha Singh as Shikhandini
• Karan Suchak as Dhrishtadyumna
• Paras Arora as Abhimanyu
• Richa Mukherjee as Uttara
• Hemant Choudhary as Kripacharya
• Sudesh Berry as Dhrupad
• Pravisht Mishra as Uttar
• Nazea Hasan Sayed as Vrushali
• Kaushik Chakravorty as Shalya
• Sandeep Arora as Vikarn
• Vandana Singh as Yashoda
• Kunwar Vikram Soni as Krishna
• Ketki Kadam as Radha
• Preeti Puri Choudhary as Devaki
• Vivana Singh as Ganga
• Sameer Dharmadhikari as Shantanu
• Aparna Dixit as Ambika
• Mansi Sharma as Ambalika
• Aryamann Seth as Vichitravirya
• Atul Mishra as Ved Vyas
• Arun Singh Rana as Pandu
• Suhani Dhanki as Madri
• Ali Hassan as Takshak , Jayadrath
• Ajay Mishra as Sanjaya
• Vaishnavi Dhanraj as Hidimbi
• Anju Jadhav as Sukhada
• Garima Jain as Dushala
• Ashnoor Kaur as Young Dushala
• Ketan Karande as Ghatothkach
• Joy Mathur as Shishupala
• Mohit Raina as Shiva
• Puneet Issar as Parshurama
• Nikhil Arya/Sachin Verma as Indra
• Kunal Bhatia as Agni
• Deepak Jethi as Virata
• Tinu Verma as Jarasandha
• Gurpreet Singh as Prince Rukmi
• Jayantika Sengupta as Arshi
• Rio Kapadia as Subala
• Shweta Gautam as Sudharma
• Chandani Sharma as Kripi
• Raj Premi as Kalayavan
• Siddhant Gautam as Ekalavya
• Alam Khan as Duryodhan
• Ananya Agarwal as Malini
• Akhilendra Mishra as Kansa
• Rumi Khan as Kichaka

Production and promotion

Star spent ₹100 crore (US$14 million) on the project and spent another ₹20 crore (US$2.8 million) on marketing the show, making it India's most expensive TV series of its time. Its record of being India's most expensive TV show is broken by Porus TV show.^[11]

According to producer Siddharth Kumar Tiwary the Draupadi cheer haran (disrobing) sequence,^[12] which Tiwary directed, took twenty days to shoot.^[13]

Reception and impact

Writing for Rediff, Nishi Tiwari wrote that "If it maintains the quality of writing and able actors who portray key characters, we may have another winner among us".^[14] DNA praised the costumes, scenery, Krishna's flute theme which was given by Raj Mohan Sinha,^[15] and most of the CGI special effects, but said the story pace was too fast.^[16]

Its premier had a viewership of approximately 8.4 million people.^[17] The show has become the highest rated weekday historical epic show in the last three years on Indian television.^[18]

The viewership ratings of the week of 1 December 2013 reached 9,801 TVTs. The game of dice leading to Draupadi's 'cheer haran' took Mahabharat at its peak viewership(10TVTs.4 TVM) and helped the broadcasting channel Star Plus clock the highest GTVMs ever achieved by any channel in Indian Television History.^[19]

It won the trophy for the Best Drama in Star Guild Awards 2013 as well as number of accolades in other award shows.^[20] It won the Indian Telly Awards for Actor in a Supporting Role (Drama) , given to Aham Sharma for his portrayal as Karna , and Actor in a Negative Role to Praneet Bhat in 2014 . The crew members also won the awards for Best Costumes for a TV Programme, Best Make – Up Artist , and Best Stylist. .^[21]

It has been dubbed to other languages including Bengali, Marathi, Oriya, Malayalam , Tamil and Telugu.^[22]

In Indonesia, the drama was broadcast on antv dubbed in Indonesian in March 2014. The casts of Mahabharat were invited to hold a fan meeting tour at Jakarta and Bali. The Times of India reported in 2014 that the show has a huge fan following abroad and as result, the prominent characters from the show had been called to Indonesia for a special event.^[23] The main casts of Mahabharat, performed on "Mahabharat Show: Fan Meeting Tour" in the year 2014 .^{[24][25][26][27][28][29][30]}

As from 6 December 2015, the show starts airing in its original version and subtitled in English on MBC Digital 4 every Sunday in Mauritius.

In Thailand, the drama was broadcast on Channel 5 dubbed in Thai starting January 2, 2016.^[31]

Awards

References

External links

• Mahabharat on IMDb
• Official Website on hotstar