Was it the plot? Or the epic canvas? Or was it the fascination for the radical new retelling of a familiar story? Looking back, it is hard to tell what attracted my 15-year-old self to Randamoozham by M T Vasudevan Nair — a book that would change my perspective on life, once and for all.
A retelling of the Mahabharata that brings Bhima to its centre, but with the rawest human emotions at play — that’s the one-line description that hooked and drew me into the novel.
To the rebellious teenager I once was, the book was more about MT’s boldness in redrawing the contours of the epic by shifting its centre from Arjuna or Krishna to the much-overlooked Bhima. Each time I returned to it afterwards, I would once again experience burning passion, unrequited love and fuming jealousy that fuelled this tale retold — an ensemble of the most human of emotions. It wasn’t just that the mythical muscleman was humanised — I was also curious to see someone known only for his rage hurtle through love, lust and loss.
As an adult, I read this as a story about how individuals are mere pawns in a larger game. The novel shows that it doesn’t matter whether you’re the strongest or the wisest — there are always things at play that are beyond your reach. It shows how opposing interests can align for a cause — like a Krishna who dances with joy knowing that Bhima’s son Ghatotkach is dead. It explains the difficult realities of life so effortlessly.
For a cinephile, the book could also be a movie. Your reading experience depends on where you place the camera. The narrator has set the perspective of Bhima but then there are perspectives that you find to look at him. Be it through Vidura, who is compassionate to Bhima and his brothers, or be it Duryodhana who’s trying to get him killed, the reader’s experience differs every time. Coming from a writer who was also an accomplished, sought-after screenwriter, the elaborate and visual descriptions in the novel were a great pretext for a screenplay.
The lines, more or less all of them, echo inside your head in your favourite voices, making it a complete cinematic experience. Be it the eery veiled Lady Death whom Bhima sees or the jaw-dropping war scenes, the reader ends up watching an epic movie beyond comparison, even while just skimming through the pages.
It felt to me also that the book connects with every individual who has been overlooked at some point in life.
Bhima’s characterisation is not that of an epic hero. If anything, he is a tragic hero. Being a prince but growing up like a refugee, being the strongest, but also mocked as a dimwit, being the fastest but called slow-minded, Bhima embodies a range of contradictions.
Choosing such a strong and fierce man who can also be fragile and vulnerable to narrate an epic serves two purposes. One, it gives the author the chance to assert that epics aren’t always about the best of humans. Two, it enables him to become a “listener”, paying attention to the most overlooked human beings. A connection that transcends space, time and even reality connects the character to the reader, and in MT’s case, other overlooked and outcast characters.
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It helps us, the readers, own the spotlight in our stories, allowing us to discover our own voices, even when we are mostly just the listeners.
A Bhima who walks alone at night to his tent to drink himself to sleep could be anybody, anywhere, at any point of time. His emotional churn, ranging from the secrets of his birth to the secrets of death, can be anyone’s.
To me, reading Randamoozham again at this juncture, it wouldn’t be surprising if Bhima, amid his stroll, meets another character from another work by MT — maybe from Kaalam (Time) or Manju (Mist) — their inner turmoil and loneliness echoing one another’s. They share the same woes, face the same losses, and yet, carry on with the same wry smiles on their faces.
akhil.pj@expressindia.com
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