2025-02-01
42 分钟The Economist.
Sometimes I think stories are all we've got.
We tell stories about our own lives, who we are and where we're from, why we did something or why we plan to.
And we know, don't we, that those stories change.
The ones we told our parents are different from the versions our children hear.
Those we tell friends or write on a job application are something else again.
Every account contains elements of truth and fiction, and they all serve a purpose.
They exist to make sense of the randomness around us.
We need them, and not just as individuals.
Countries need stories.
Religions, civilizations,
wars and religious schisms emerge from apparently irreconcilable differences over how groups of us view land,
people, resources.
Whose version of the tale do you believe?
That's why history is so contentious, because different iterations give different people power.
The story really matters.
I'm Rosie Blore, and today on the Weekend Intelligence,
my colleague Leo Morani examines a great Hindu epic, the Mahabharat.
The mythological tale is thousands of years old and thousands of pages long.
But where might the events of this great drama have occurred in India today?