Do you love our culture, tradition, heritage? It is a useless question, because everyone will give only one answer  - YES. We all know that as members of a great civilization, it is our collective responsibility to protect our heritage, our values and our history. We all try to learn and get inspired from our history and try to pass on this history to our next generations. However, in the recent past, there have been a few incidents, which has forced me to think that there is a need to re-energize people for protecting and preserving our cultural heritage. A stich in time saves nine – so a timely action is required on our part, before we find ourselves devoid of our great heritage.

Recently a movie was released with the name “BAHUBALI”. Now you ask any youngster,  “Who is Bahubali?” and you will get an answer which is related to this movie. Over a period of time, people will forget the great historical personality of India “BAHUBALI”. Is there a dearth of names? Why should great Indian historical figures be used in movies (which have nothing to do with them)?

For those, who are not aware of Bahubali, let me share the story of Great Bahubali in brief. Rishabh Dev was the person who introduced agriculture, animal husbandary, modern system of marriage, modern systems of life style in India (long back, probably hundreds or thousands of years ago). He became the first king in India. Later he became a monk.  Later there was a fight between his two sons – Bharat and Bahubali. Bharat was the eldest. Instead of fighting through soldiers, they decided to fight individually, wherein Bahubali defeated Bharat in all fights. Bharat used unfair means when he got defeated (he used Chakra to kill Bahubali, which couldn’t be used on brothers, thus Bahubali remained unhurt). Bahubali got dissatisfied from the world at this incident and took renunciation. He gave away his kingdom to Bharat and went to forest for undertaking Kayotsarg (a system of meditation). He took meditation for one year but couldn’t attain salvation. He couldn’t attain salvation because he had some ego left. Realizing this his two sisters came to him and ushered in his ears “please get down from elephant”. Listening this Bahubali realized his mistake and left all his ego and attained salvation. This is an amazing story unparalleled in itself. Every child and youth should know the story of this great person and his values. However, with the new movie with the same name (which has nothing to do with historical great Bahubali), the new generation will now stick to the Movie name. Over a period of time, this will create a confusion. This may damage the great history and great culture of our country.
The film makers and artists should also take pride in our great history and tradition and should respect great Bahubali and should have avoided putting this name.  If they make a movie which has nothing to do with a great historical personality, they should also refrain from putting the name of this great person. If they are reading my article, I would urge them to rectify this mistake by making a movie on real story of Bahubali itself and correct this mistake.

Next time, whenever you meet youngsters, ask them what they know about  “Bahubali” and if they relate to film only, then please guide and tell them about the story of Bahubali. It is our history, our culture and our tradition and we must preserve and protect our great heritage. If we will not come forward, who will?