The life of a Bharatiya Chokri: Ashoka hai, Ashoka tha

Ashoka, if you are an Indian, you would currently be thinking of bravery, Buddhism, generosity, humbleness and a fatherly figure. Yes, I am going to dedicate this article to the great emperor. I am an avid reader of history and becoming a historian in the future is my first choice. Don’t worry; this isn’t going to be a boring, lengthy history lesson about emperor Ashoka, but simply an imaginary article.

Ashoka has always been the hero of Indian history, the grandson of Chandragupta Maurya, another great emperor, and Bindusara, who did conquer a lot of land, but failed to be an influential king. One of my relatives, who regularly reads my articles requested me to write an article on Ashoka. I, and to be frank everyone would think of how the life of Ashoka was, his conquests, contribution to Buddhism etc. But I came up with a new idea. One of the newspapers published an article about how children are finding history boring because of the way it is taught. So here you go, a little dramatic, loosely based on Chakravartin Ashoka Samrat, modernized tale of Ashoka.

Ashoka was a hero Chanakya found when he had been a ghost for 29 years, roaming around day and night in search of a worthy successor for the throne of Magadha. Now he had finally found one. Radhagupt, his favourite disciple was the only person who could see him. He communicated the message, but Ashoka laughed at him. How could a dead person say that he was the correct successor for the Magadha throne? He never liked the emperor of Magadha, this Bindusara, a puppet of his step-mother Helena and elder brother Justin (who actually never existed). Chanakya decided to do some R&D and then came to the conclusion that Ashoka was Bindusara’s son. Ashoka gave him weird looks when he got to know this “fact”. Chanakya decided that by hook or crook, he had to take Ashoka to the Magadha palace. He kidnapped his mother, and asked the poor child to come to the Magadha palace to save him. Ashoka loved his mother a lot, so cried like a bahu from one of the saas-bahu shows and went to rescue her. He didn’t have Wi-Fi at his house as he was poor, so he sent a text message to his friends and they all went to rescue his mother. The soldiers at the gate were all busy with their phones, so it was easy to get in. They kept going; the soldiers saw them only when they had almost entered Radhagupta’s room. Radhagupt showed Ashoka way to his mother, who stood there crying and wasting glycerine which was needed for the other parts of her life. Ashoka was angry at his mother for teaching him values such as, no wasting and she was doing the same. But at the same time, he was relieved that he had finally seen her. He hugged her tightly. Just then, Bindusara entered. His face saw Ashoka’s mother (Subhadrangi) thrice and he was like, “Kya? Kya? Kya?”(If you watch daily soaps, you can visualise the scene). Then he came close to her and embraced her. Just then, Helena entered with dagger…….And "Agle hafted dekhiye” flashes on the screen.

This is just a small part of the “crazy history of Magadha”. Stay tuned in for more. If I get at least over 20 comments on this article, I will make it a monthly. So if you want to read more of the “crazy history of Magadha” and other regions, comment.