Mahabharata is something that would never be overrated for me. Unfortunately others didn't think so (oh yeah, as if they even know Mahabharata exist.) One of the finest work of literature originated from Religious Hindu epic of India, adapted and modified by ancient Javanese (called "Carangan" ,with Punakawan character, and some other heros such as Gatot Kaca, Wisanggeni, etc ^^, which eventually served as a side story but with significant role to the whole plots), Mahabharata is one of the most complex, intriguing, long story with intricate plots involving all of life's significants aspect - politics, love, power, karma, war, money, etc and full of wisdom and lesson of life itself. It is bigger than merely a war epic. Almost all wayang (shadow leather puppet) shows use one of the piece taken from one of Mahabharata scene. Not only stopped into the so-called traditional way, in late 1960's and 1970's during the booming of Indonesian comic, Mahabharata was one of the most popular story which had its comic verse..but unfortunately it stopped there. My generation generally knows almost nothing about Mahabharata.. Some of us might still recognize that Arjuna's a real Cassanova, Bima is the strongest of the Pandawa Lima, and that's it. (I was even surprised that some people didn't confuse the Pandawa in Mahabharata epic with Pandawa Lima s the album title of one of the famous Indonesian Band). Well, for some reason, my generation doesn't watch wayang anymore, and most of (97%) comic here comes from Japan. We might be more familiar with the summer fest (a.k.a Bon Odori) in Japan more than our very own tradition. (no offense, i am a big anime fans too :P). I see almost zero attachment to our own root, our culture, our own local wisdom. When the topic of 'back to local wisdom' is elevated into the surface lately by some media, i doubt that my genration evemn knows what does it mean and what does it contain..
My very favorite character from Mahabharata epic didn't come from the kingdom of 'hero' side (well, if we try to draw a line between black and white, hero and villain, which actually we can't do in interpreting Mahabharata, since it's not a Hollywood kinda war story of hero vs villain) but came from the kingdom of 'kurawa' (they are the sinister character here), named Bhisma. I've ever written a short one-page story about him as my english class paper..Bhisma is known for his great sacrifice (he sacrifice his throne, his chance to live as a king and marry a girl, and even swore to sacrifice his life, for the sake of his beloved father King Sentanu). This noble sacrifice is t eventually earned him a gift from Gods, the gift of deciding his own death. He was a very sharp minded,loyal politician, a Resi (priest) and strong knight/hero (Ksatria) who loved his country (yeah, since he was there even before Pandawa and Kurawa born) so much and would sacrifice his best for his country.
Talking about Bhisma would costs me more than one post, so let me just wrapped it!The first person at my age I've ever known (besides my Dad) who know about Bhisma is Chris, a friend who turned out to be a young writer of Wayang story, with one of his book entitled "Bhisma". I remember my first conversation with this debater friend , a few years ago. We were heading back from the Jogja Debating Forum session, when we started to run out of topic. Then I asked him a standard question - what kind of book he likes. It turn out to be a 3 hours conversation about Mahabharata and the book he was working on that time, 'Bhisma' .
" Wini, you're one of the very rare freaks I've met in my life.."
" A freak? ME?"
" Yeah..Wonder how people would stared at us if only they know why we spent three hours here AND what we're talking about. In this Hollywood global culture?Oh yeah, we're two freak who's talking about how cool Bhisma is instead of any other populist topic.."
" ..."
Oh yeah..In the realm culture where attachment towards our own root and culture become an anti paradox, we two were a freak aliens who talk about thing that almost none from our age would get..I guess that's a sacrifice I have to make to get at least someone to talk about Mahabharata and its lesson to. And to get closer to Bhisma...