In this masterpiece, M.T, the famous Malayalam writer, is "reading between the lines of Mahabharatha and expanding the pregnant silence." This is the story of Bhima, the second Pandava.
Here the epic is told, not as the story of supernatural heroes, but as the story of ordinary human beings. Even Krishna is not attributed with divinity, but seen in a different light. In the narrative, Bhima dismisses many events like his encounter with Hanuman while going for 'kalyanasougandhikam', defeating a whole army single handedly, breaking a rock when he was a small kid etc as exaggerations of story tellers. Even the scene where Krishna saves Droupadi while Dusshassan tries to humiliate her is missing. Yudhishtar is portrayed as a coward and a gambler . In more than one place, the book gives stress on the fact that women were considered destined to suffer, be it Gandhari, who married Dhritharashtrar without knowing about his blindness, Kunthi ,who married Pandu but was forced to conceive sons from others or Draupadi who was forced to marry the five brothers.
Bhima , who gets only second turn everywhere, is given a human light by the author and seeing the second Pandava as an ordinary human being who was forced to sail through many a oceans of tears, is touching.
An excellent work, 4 out of 5.
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