Star Wars' India connections you will love | #203
+ guess the Indian show based on a Stephen King novel?
Hello mitron
You probably already know this, but May 4th is celebrated as Star Wars Day. In fact, our first ever issue explained the origins of this special day.
On May 4, 1979, Britain elected Margaret Thatcher as their Prime Minister. Thatcher ran under the Conservative Party at the time. To celebrate Thatcher's victory, the party put an advertisement in The London Evening News that read, “May the Fourth Be With You, Maggie. Congratulations!”
And thus was born the Star Wars phenomenon of May the Fourth be with you.
This week we take a look at some interesting stories related to Star Wars and its (sometimes tenuous) connections India.
Things we learnt this week 🤓
If some WhatsApp forwards are to be believed, Australia comes from Astra-laya, California from Kalparanya. This is probably untrue but here’s a similarly themed Star Wars fact that might just be true. Till about 2014, nobody knew Emperor Palpatine’s first name. It was revealed in the 2014 novel Tarkin, that his first name is Sheev. Many have speculated that he has been named after the Hindu god Shiva. There are other characters that have been acknowledged to have been named after Indians. Ahsoka Tano (after Emperor Ashoka), Shaak-Ti after Shakti. Yoda is also said to have been named after the Sanskrit word for Yodha. Go ahead and chewbacca on this.
The Hindi trailer for Episode VIII: The Last Jedi also had the same verses of the Bhagavad Gita that featured in the title song of BR Chopra’s Mahabharat.
paritrāṇāya sādhūnāṁ vināśhāya cha duṣhkṛitām
dharma-sansthāpanārthāya sambhavāmi yuge yuge
The title in Hindi is आख़री योद्धा which is a nice hat-tip to the previous fact mentioned above. Here’s the video.
Mukesh Khanna has portrayed many iconic roles - he was Bhishma Pitamah in BR Chopra’s Mahabharat. He also portrayed Shaktimaan. But for a short period of time, his production house held the record for the most expensive TV show in India. Aryamaan: Brahmand ka Yoddha was an ambitious Indian version of Star Wars that Bheeshma International, Mukesh Khanna’s production house, tried to create post-Shaktimaan. Each episode was costing the production house upwards of Rs 20 lakhs. It couldn’t sustain the huge production costs and the show had to be scrapped after 52 episodes.
From IWTK, with love 💌
An Indian TV show is based on a Stephen King novel. Identify IT.
Identify this famous person who is a background dancer in this song.
Only In India 🇮🇳
Modern problems have modern solutions.
We would like to thank Riddhi whose thread has been the source for this week’s newsletter.
All we can say is:
❤️ IWTK