The Mahabharat series currently running on the Star Plus TV channel was measured by TAM India to have attracted 9.2 million viewers over week 30 of 2014. This put in second place among the top 10 Hindi TV serials, behind Diya Aur Baati Hum, and ahead of Jodha Akbar and Kapil Sharma’s Comedy Nights With Kapil.
The show is based on the ancient epic of the same name, which also happens to be the longest poem in the world. It also contains within it, the Bhagavad Gita, the holy scripture which quotes Krishna as he speaks about the divine. Along with the Ramayana story, the Mahabharat forms the corpus of epic literature in ancient India. The story revolves around the Kuru clan and the catastrophic Kurukshetra war between cousins within the clan, the Pandavas and the Kauravas.
Producer Siddharth Kumar Tewary worked with a team of 55 over a period of four years to set the basis for the show and get it off the ground. The serial is the second such in 25 years, and the first since 1988 to air in India. The previous one aired on Doordarshan, the nationalised television channel. The new Mahabharat began in September 2013 amid much publicity and fanfare. Currently, the storyline revolves around the Kurukshetra battle and is at its climax stage. Since the story is bound to end soon, rumors of the programs end have begun to make the rounds.
Tewary was circumspect about the show’s future. “We have a lot in store. I can’t reveal what it is at this moment. Expectations really put a lot of pressure on everybody and that isn’t a way to live life. I have made an effort to challenge myself with every story that I had to tell. But the fact is that we have no control over the outcome. Then why expect any result of the efforts I put. All I can do is try to remain honest to my work.”