Om Raut’s Adipurush is a testimony to ‘Information Paradox’

Bollywood’s recent slip Adipurush is a testimony to the fact that we are living in a world of ‘Information Paradox’.

Accessing countless sources of information available all over the world leads to quality loss, as happened in case of Adipurush. It is absolutely alright to access centuries’ old information, re-condition it to best suit the current social environment and present it to the audience for better acceptance.

But picking up information points without understanding the original context in its entirety, changing it arbitrarily and yet claiming it to be a representation of the original, leads to Om Raut’s Adipurush. 

As a marketer, I vouch for the reducing attention span of audiences. Ironically, a 30 second insta reel gets more likes than a well-researched article on the same subject. But this rule cannot be loosely or universally applied everywhere. Reason why, producing quality content is still expensive; both in terms of time and money.

But neither time, nor money seemed to have been scant in case of Adipurush’s production.

Then what could have gone wrong?

Perhaps, it was the fear of being obsolescent. It’s true that in a technologically advanced society, things become obsolete quickly. The honorable creator of Adipurush didn’t realize that it was neither a commodity, nor a fantasy being filmed. It was a representation of the Indian value system. Values that have been representative of our culture for centuries together. Values that bind our society. Values that are derived from mythological epics like Ramayana and Mahabharata. Values that draw wisdom from the most ancient and sacred source of wisdom – our Vedas and Upanishads.

Adipurush tells us; at no point should the fear of becoming obsolete take over the motivation to create something genuine. Innovation at the cost of values should not be deemed acceptable.

Some of the Adipurush creators have responded to objections raised on the language used in the movie saying; using a different dialect was the need of the hour as we wished the film to establish the chord right with the children and youth; the Gen Z, as we call them.

Does it mean our education system has evolved to a level that our children cannot understand a language in its true form? Do we need to break it as local and impure to establish the connect right? To our disappointment, it’s the same writer who wrote the dialogues for the iconic Bollywood releases; Bahubali 2; some of whose dialogues went viral. Don’t we remember; mera vachan hi hai mera shashan (My word is my discipline, my law)?

Bahubali’s language was respectful and represented a strong value system laid in our Vedas. Vedas teach us to have a control on our senses and the might of practicing morality and virtues that makes one a man of character. In no period of the history of India, was so much importance given to morality and character building as the Vedic period. So how could a country with as much wisdom accept mythology that’s so loosely handled and frivolously depicted?!

Besides language, Adipurush seem to have been scripted based on information and not wisdom.

Information that lacked reasoning as it missed some incidents in the journey.

No wonder, Adipurush’s Lanka is black as opposed to the Golden Lanka (Swarna Lanka) of the Ramayana. Lanka was made of Gold because it depicted a significant incident in Indian mythology; i.e. creation of Lanka upon the request of Goddess Parvati.

There is a popular story behind the creation of Lanka which goes like this.

One day, Narada Muni went up to Goddess Parvati and said; See, Goddess Laxmi lives in a magnificent palace, and you live in cold Himalayan Mountains. Upon hearing this, Goddess Parvati went up to Lord Shiva expressing her disappointment. She asked the Lord to build a palace like none had ever seen before. Lord Shiva approached Lord Vishwakarma (The architect of the Universe) to create a wonderful palace for which Kubera (Lord of wealth) gave gold and the result was the marvelous City of Gold named as SWARNA LANKA (City Of Gold).

The creation was grand, and the housewarming had to match the grandeur of Swarna Lanka. Ravana, who was one of the wisest saints of the times was invited to perform the ceremony. Upon completion of the ceremony, Goddess Parvati asked Ravana to express a wish. This incident lead to Ramayana.

Ravana asked for the custody of Lanka. Goddess Parvati was astounded to hear this and angrily said; wish granted. But along with it came the curse that people of Lanka would never be happy and the city would burn away to flames one day. A devastation that would be remembered for centuries and generations. This seed of Parvati’s curse laid the foundation of Ramayana. Lanka was made of Gold; a metal that has the property to only melt when ignited and not burn. But the curse powered Lanka to burn into asked.

While Ravana getting Lanka with a curse might seem to be a small incident in the Ramayana, it was for this reason that Lanka was made up of Gold. Perhaps the creators of Adipurush missed out on this incident and also the fact that showing a black Lanka wouldn’t be accepted by the audience.

Information points when referred to and picked without the right contexts lead to disasters.

India is a country of rich natural wealth, richer culture and wisdom stemming from Vedas and Upanishads and is probably one of the richest in emotional agility. And no technological advancement can ever weaken the foundation of our value system. One of the reasons why Adipurush failed to strike the chord right.

God or the Divine is abstract, but our age-old wisdom gets passed between generations and there is enough reference to the context of incidents that are being narrated by our grandparents and parents.

We are living in an era where Science is proving that the experiences of parents influence the personality of their children even before they are conceived.

So, how could Adipurush sail through so easily?

Amidst thousands of do-not-watch content pieces around Adipurush, we look forward to legends like SS Rajamouli Ji to present Mahabharata in its true spirit. A dream of his that we look forward to.

Here’s the information paradox I referred to:

By Ruchi Adlakha
Om Raut’s Adipurush is a testimony to ‘Information Paradox’ – Ruchi Adlakha (wordpress.com)