Selling Draupadi in a free market

An economist with a passion for the epics. An Indologist who argues fervently onu00a0the merits ofu00a0liberalisation. It's difficult to define Bibek Debroy with just a single adjective.u00a0FYI chatted up with the man who re-translated the Mahabharata

Bibek Debroy looks a scholar all right. Grey mop, thick glasses, nerdy smile. But after hearing him passionately speak on TV about India's march towards globalisation, you would not expect Debroy to have much passion for the past. Or attempt a ten-volume unabridged translation of the Mahabharata based on the Critical Edition compiled at the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute in Pune.


Illustration/u00a0 Sameer Pawar

But Debroy tells you this isn't a new quirk. "My interests in Indology go back to 1981. Sanskrit has always been an abiding passion. I have translated the Maha Puranas, Vedas and Upanishads. As also Bankim Chandra's Samya into English."

Debroy is well aware of the glorious irony here. Globalisation stifles ancient cultures, its detractors have often argued. And for a free-market economist to be so passionate about his ancient culture is, well, ironical. "Why can't someone be interested in both?" is all he offers.

Debroy has company. NR Narayana Murthy, whose Infosys is a New India success story, has just given a rather generous gift of $5.2 million to Harvard University to establish a new publication series called the Murthy Classical Library Series. The big idea is to dip into India's multilingual literary heritage.

So, is this some kind of course correction for men who argued India needs to "open up"? Again, all Debroy concedes is: "I don't regard this as either or."

The author has his hands full. There will be a new volume of the epic every six months. So, even his current passion of photography may have to take a backseat as he is busy with the 80,000 couplets or shlokas of the Mahabharata for now.
What's his favourite Mahabharata character? "Well, I don't really have one. Saying Karna would be too cliched."u00a0u00a0

One of the things that Debroy has attempted is to make the colossal epic reader-friendly, something translators in the past have failed to achieve. "I have tried to make the English easier, retaining authenticity."

Sample this excerpt: "When he reached the hermitage of Naimisharanya, the hermits who were the inhabitants, surrounded him, wishing to hear his wonderful stories.

Having been respectfully welcomed by those sages, he folded his arms before all those sages and asked them how their ascetic pursuits were progressing.

When all the sages had taken their seats, Lomaharshana's son respectfully took the seat earmarked for him."

For a generation growing up on Harry Potter, this should be easy reading.