Tuesday, May 9, 2017

Mahishmati - An alternate reality

Baahubali , A trend setting movie which had created a massive fan following around the world. I need to also mention the amount of detail which has gone in to production value and character scripting in the entire story!

Right from the detail of how the unanswered questions in the part 1 were given a detailed thought and answer in the second one. Like how Anushka`s(Devasena) brother looks while heading the revolt as the older bearded man in the first part and meeting him as the elder brother to a much younger and beautiful Anushka again in the second part. I could go on and on about it. But I am a science guy,dude! What I take from the movie is realism which it could reflect in real life 21st century world.

Like my favourite martian explorer, Dr. Mark Watney said, " I am going to science the shit out of it!"

Born and raised in India, one can relate to the ways in which the movie depicts the kingdom of Mahishmati, baren waste lands that surround a serene beautiful landscape that is stricken with water scarcity in the middle zone of the kingdom in which the Elder Bahubali treads to the place and helps with his engineering skills to water it and create opportunity for agriculture and live stock management.

In a parallel note, before the destruction of the Kuntala Kingdom, by the greedy and the serpentine grasp of the Mahishmati then emperor, Balladeva by stopping the cause for the young widow Devasena to recapture the throne by revolt!

One must remember that the Kuntala Kingdom use to be the Green valley of the entire expanse of the imaginary kingdoms of Baahubali. ( I remember that the Kingdom even rejected the wealth of the Mahishmati during the alliance request of Devasena by herself)

I think it might be due to the reason that Mahishmati is a Trade adverted Kingdom, this is because if you remember when Sivagami asks the young to-be-crowned king,Baahubali to travel and understand the complex nature of the bordering kingdoms while Devasena is helping her kingdom by hunting wild boars that trouble the farmers in cultivation. (See, even the economy can be debated in the Baahubali universe)

Another thing which I certainly cannot deny is the fact that 3 generations of strong off-springs, from the father to son, in the Baahubali family clan of Mahishmati. They must have some genetic trait unique to be the reason for super human strength but wait....

I also came up to read extensively about the ways in which a river valley and civilizations thrive in the expanse of the 6000 years of human existence, case in point being noted in bullet points as follows,
  • Indus valley, building the agricultural community in river valley basin of Indus river
  • Mayan civilization, building the high reaching civic culture in the reserves of Machu Pichu
  • Nile valley, Egypt.. need I say more about the cultural expanse
Genetics is a trait that is something prominent in study for any living creature and genetic evolution of the same is something which is deciphered much in point of human evolution and agriculture as well, because the food chain is ending at last to the plants and where do you grow plants from?? Bio-chamber? or barren lands?

Farmers are big way to nourish our food nutrition value. They are the cooks who play the vital reason to enrich our food with nutrients. Case in point,potassium, calcium, so and on were first added with natural manure to the crops.. but now... Introducing new hero to the old ways, GMO

Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) gives you the advantage of skipping so many steps of manuring, enriching and pest controlling all in one go.


They are also debated to the point that humans have become better mules in the corporate world of food industry conglomerate such as the FDA approved and FSSAI certified foods which are in turn just playing coy to build your taste bud strive for more food rather than healthy food.



Now coming back to the Baahubali's Super human strength scenes which are sprinkled across the movie,
  1. Lifting a massive Linga( God Shiva ) statue and barely cracking and panting for breath 
  2. Endurance of mountaineering day and night to meet his mistress in top of the waterfall
  3. Lifting a 125 ft statue of pure solid gold by hand and shouldering it in just the nick of time before it crushes many people underneath it.( I just googled the statue fact)
  4. Throwing the battle ram thrown by the kalakeyas with much ease
  5. Pushing the temple car and ramming it on the elephant
  6. Destructing the dam in the Kuntala Kingdom with sickle shaped anchor.
  7. Pulling the wayward water through the small boat and a bendable tree stalk to fill a water body for the people to use for daily needs.
  8. Breaking the base of the 125ft statue of Balladeva with bare hand knock out punch.
  9. Younger Baahubali and Older Balladeva fighting out in strength combat at the end.
Also to be mentioned are the strengths shown in equal or varied proportion with other members of the family such as Balladeva conquering and tossing a charged bull,  his father breaking a pillar with one hand.

So, to have this amazing strength one must be highly nutritious enough to amaze such a physique and strength. Or is it so that something else is in play???

My point is, either the Baahubali and the king's dynasty had developed a genetic trait to make them powerful than the common man or the entire population is consuming malnutrition food for them to be weak and meek than everyone they ever knew or all together it is same.

Facts to understand better,
  • Weaker people can be so frail and fragile that they build structures which are not made to last  and they usually fail over buckling load
  • Structures they make could be described as,
    • The pillar and flooring in the palace that cracks to the weight of the hero's might
    • The Temple car made of wood and stone, to construct & pulled by one man's strength ( Baahubali which I meant)
    • 125 ft solid gold statue which calculated with specific density of Gold and actuated to cylindrical mass calculation that 1 foot of human measure would relate to 20 sq ft of the statue base would result in 21522145 Kg which is 21522 Tons ( Assumptions as a cylinder with base of 20 ft and length of 125 ft)
The case can be further discussed if we could somehow know the Mahishmati's daily food intake and nutrition supplement, I guess if someone showed us what the King's food is actually like. So,we could know what is that we miss or gain in our everyday life of 21st century ( Maybe Baahubali had special mix of food? not Complan and Horlicks as us!!)
Now, the science guy in me wants to say, "We need to eat right and know what is right from what the taste buds want "

P.S: I know people would draw parallels to the discussion here to how 23Pulikesi found his Kollan ( the blacksmith and weapon smith ) in the dungeon where he is captured and pulls the chains to show his might of wasting his time and energy getting sunk in torture treatment.

Well, I got the thought only after writing this article and incidentally lot of thought process went in to the understanding of malnutrition and proportions of good food in this writing.

To all those foodie people out there, Eat well!!

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