Corona vs Hiranya Kasubu: A Mythology with a twist

Indian mythologies are consistent in one way but at times pedals illogic. The asuras are always portrayed as arrogant, greedy in power, evil and unjust. But they get wonderful boons from usually the most-dumbest of God Brahma. Asuras pray for hundreds of years, sometimes standing on one leg, letting anthill grow around them. If Asuras can control their senses for such a long period, how they turn into opposites once they get their boon? Exceptions of course is Mahabali, yet he met with the same fate as the rest due to the treachery of Vamana. Another instance is Ravana who was considered as a Shiv Bhakt, scholar of Ayurveda, a proficient musician and an inventor of pushpaka vimana. Yet he was shown to kidnap Sitha instead of confronting Lakshman who molested his sister Soorpanaka. All that Soorpanaka did was to line maro like the modern Romeos do. She didn't deserve to get her nose cut. Yet Ravana didn't touch Sitha goes the mythology.

That brings me to another Asura Hiranya Kasubu who is the central character in this satire. Once again, he prays for eons and gets a boon from Brahma. The myth goes by his boon he will never be slayed by the human or the beast, day or night, inside or outside or on earth or heaven. Having prayed so hard he could have done some his homework as well, since his boon was found to be wanting as the mythology goes. Anyways he ends up with a son Prahlada who is described as a bhakt of Vishnu. How and why does Prahalada ends up a bhakt of Vishnu knowing very well that Vishnu in his earlier avatar as Varaha was the one who killed Prahalada's uncle is not well understood by this author. Hiranya realises that Prahlada was his nemesis and orders his killing. But each time he gets rescued by Vishnu. In a final confrontation of sorts Hiranya asks Prahlada where he can find Vishnu. Prahalada says he exists in the pillar as well as in any atom. Hiranya smashes the pillar and outcomes Narasimha, a half beast, half human, the time happens to be twilight hour, neither day nor night. Narasimha carried Hiranya and places him on his lap, neither earth nor heavens and at the steps leading to the palace, neither outside nor inside. Vishnu thus proves he has a better IQ than Hiranya and slays Hiranya.

Modern India

It occurred to me a modern version of Hiranya rules the nation now. He must have prayed hard and got a boon from Brahma. The boon goes like this: never get defeated in election; above karma so that actions such as demonetisation, introducing Gabbar Singh Tax, as one opposition politician put it, lockdown at four hours, getting the economy in shambles don't boomerang on him. He will be the only one to remain uninfected by any virus; he will make the migrants suffer yet they will vote for him at the hustle. So well protected by commandos that no bullet can get near him. He will be the PM CARES but yet not care about the dying and suffering citizens

The Gods confabulated in the heavens. This Hiranya is proving to be disastrous for the nation. Something must be done. Gods created Corona. In the first round Corona got defeated by Hiranya. At least that is what Hiranya thought. Arrogance got to his head like in the mythologies asuras are always prone. Then Corona struck with a vengeance. The impact was damning. You can read the news media to know how devastating is the Corona effect now-a-days. Hiranya got caught unawares. He was totally ill-prepared. He was spending his time eve-teasing didi by singing didi-o-didi. He believed in the myth that Ganga water purifies and did not stop the Kumbh mela leading to escalation of the virus infection. Hiranya began to falter. When a Bhishma like modern figure advised him, his side kick replied in a mocking way. News came tumbling out how Hiranya had ignored the wise counsel of experts' panel. Oxygen would get into short supply he had been told. Vaccine production was not planned properly. Yet the nation made commitment to supply vaccines to several other countries. Hiranya wondered what was going wrong?

Hiranya retreated to his favourite cave and reflected upon himself. He considered himself to be an avatar which came upon the world to rescue the humans in this nation. He recalled his days as Ram. He remembered slaying the demon Ravana. He clearly remembered dancing on Kaliya, the multi-hooded snake. He also remembered lifting the Govardhangiri to protect the cow herds from a lashing rain. He was the Gautama who walked out of his family life to uplift the people from suffering. Now in this avatar he has come to make the country free from dynasty rule and reclaim her glory and make her a viswaguru. Yet the people barely recognised him in his true-self. of course, some did call him an avatar now and then. There was a woman who considered him as god. But these were all emotional outburst. There were caricatures of him dressed up as Lord Ram in the media.

Of course, one may ask why should commoners suffer on account of Hiranya? As Americans are fond of saying that was 'collateral damage.' Anyways people pressed the wrong button, some price they had to pay. Does Corona slay Hiranya politically speaking? That is left for season-2.

The OTT producer was quite satisfied with the summary of the script that was given to him. It had everything that one could ask for. Mythology in the modern context, elections, politics, Corona. He wanted to introduce the female element which was missing, which his script writer could take care. He wanted to hire two script writers who were antagonist to each other. One was Prashant and the other Chanakya. There would be fire in the script. He also wanted to get his favourite Deepika to play a meaty role. He wondered if she could play the role of the fire-brand didi. When the producer twittered about this upcoming season-one episode it was liked by the Twitterati. He was debating about a suitable title.