The Mauryan Trilogy

It's been five years since I wrote the first outline of the story on Asoka. Emperor Asoka, that is. The idea hit me after I watched Shahrukh's "Asoka" and was totally disappointed with the storyline. The vivid imagery and much better storyline of "The Last Samurai" was still fresh in my mind. That movie had the best war sequence in a period film, probably next to the LOTR one. Also, it didn't have Cruise and Koyuki dancing around trees singing songs. Yes, she did bathe under a bamboo cascade, but didn't sing "san sanana nan" :)

That made me wonder, why don't I write something like that, a fiction set in Mauryan times. I'll give you the details of the plot and the writing effort in another post, but let me tell you here, the Asok in my story, the protagonist, is NOT Emperor Asoka, although the story does revolve around the Emperor's life and times. The protagonist of my story is also called Asok, a fictional character whose life gets intertwined with that of the Emperor, eventually leading to the Kalinga War. Because of this namesake character, I plan to name the book, "The Less Beloved of the Gods".

Lately, I've also endeared to the tale of Emperor Chandragupta, grandfather of Emperor Asoka and the first King of the Mauryan empire. Doordarshan has already telecasted "Chanakya" and so I have enough resources for historical reference. So I thought, after I complete the Asoka book, I should write the 'sequel', go back to the grandfather, and write a story. Very 'Kill Bill' like style. :)

Now to write a trilogy, I needed a third story. After a lot of contemplation, I decided to write the story of Prince Kunala, the last (?) ruler of the Mauryan empire, Asoka's son, blinded by Queen Tishyaraka, the youngest queen of the emperor. From the ideas I have in my mind right now, that story has the promise of a lot of debauchery. I'll tell you why later. :)

The Power of the Narrative

In the movie 'Munich', the first target of Eric Bana's crack unit, about 30 minutes before he was assassinated, was addressing a small audience about the power of the narrative. It was an address about his own book - a translation of the 1001 Arabian Nights into Italian - but he was explaining why Scheherezade succeeding in keeping the Emperor captivated with her stories. It was simply because of the power of the narrative.

Now I dont have the expertise to decipher the power of the narrative, but to add my two cents on this, I have to comment on the movies that made it to the Oscars this year. Most of them, apart from Avatar, I thought, had powerful storylines. Avatar turned out to be a big bore, a typical Hollywood melodrama that we've already seen in varying degrees and versions in many other flicks.

The good flicks, with good storylines, include Crazy Heart, An Education, the Sandra Bullock film (forget the name now and am too lazy to google it), and Precious. Even The Hurt Locker.

Back home in Bollywood, I liked the Ishqiya narrative. The movie itself may not be on par with Vishal Bharadwaj's other classics like Maqbool and Omkara, but it did have a good storyline. What makes it even more likeable is the fact that Maqbool and Omkara were adaptations of Macbeth and Othello respectively. This story, I think, was an original from Bharadwaj's stable.

Man, even as I think of these movies, I'm wondering, these are the kinds of stories I would like to write!