The Mahabharata code by Karthik K. B. Rao

"The Mahabharata code" by Karthik K. B. Rao. This book is published by Notion press in 2016 and has 234 pages. 

Narayan Rao is a scientist at NASA. They receive response from an unknown planet in Sanskrit. No man has ever travelled 10 light years. A crew is assembled and they reach this mysterious planet. There they meet Vyas who wants to stage Mahabharata on that planet for the evolution of the inhabitants with the help of earthlings. 

Who is Vyas? Why does he want to stage Mahabharata? Is it possible to recreate such a complex story? What is the role of Narayan Rao?

The story uses technology to restage Mahabharata. The bow in Draupadi swayamwar is biometrically protected so that only a descendant of God can lift it. There is a hidden camera in Krishna's peacock feather. Krishna gifts Draupadi solar oven and ready to eat food packets and calls it Akshaypatra. Divyastra are Biometrically protected weapons. Nirbhaya shot is an injection to render someone impotent to prevent rapes, an example of Black humor. NASA's satellite launched in 1989s called WHATSUP? Etc. 

It's a fantastic idea to restage Mahabharata on a remote planet with simpleton humans. When you plan any event, there are a thousand things that can go wrong. Would it not happen with this Mahabharata? I would have liked the story to show how Vyasa managed to stage it despite various characters wanting to respond to the events in a different way than the character of original epic. However that does not happen. Author tells us how the story line was maintained with the help of technology largely ignoring the human mind and possible anomalies and deviations. When the story reaches to delivering Gita, it takes an entirely different course of action and restaging of Mahabharata is abandoned like an orphan. 

Krishna's explanation of human lives, rebirths, yugas, avtars, essence of being through the allegory of malware infested souls, environment and 'The Game' is very good. It converts philosophy into modern parlance easily understood by today's generation. 

However after this the book goes into tail spin. Rao's derilium plunges the readers into an eddy of reality, virtual reality, dream, hallucinations and parallel universe. At the end it's like the movie 'Inception' where you don't know if it's reality or it's a dream. 

Why did I read this book? Blurb. Concept. 

What I didn't like? Restaging was abandoned. 

What did I like? Krishna's explanation in modern day parlance. 

Read if you like this review.