References to the epics are everywhere in Java - the language, the street signs, the political commentary.
Ever since, Hindu cultural norms have infused indigenous mores, even after large-scale conversion to Islam in the 16th century. By the 7th century CE, Hindu-Buddhist kingdoms dominated both Java and Sumatra - Indonesia’s two most populous islands. For centuries, many parts of the Indonesian archipelago were majority-Hindu. The popularity of a show based on the Mahabharata in Muslim-majority Indonesia might seem surprising, but da Cunha explained that Hindu epics are part of the country’s culture. The programme consisted of interviews and assorted histrionics - such as the five Pandavas and their arch-enemies, Duryodhana and Karna, gyrating to music that, though loud, could not drown out the ululations of the hundreds-strong, largely female audience. Early this October, ANTV brought seven Mahabharat cast members over from India to perform in a live, three-hour stage show in Jakarta. “With these kinds of ratings, we decided to go further,” he explained. Middle-aged and portly, da Cunha chuckled compulsively while recounting the numbers. I met with Kelly da Cunha, ANTV’s general manager of production, in a boxy backstage room a few hours before filming for the Panah elimination round was to begin. At its peak, the show reached 7.6 per cent of Indonesia’s television viewership the World Cup final reached only 6.2 per cent.
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ANTV soon discovered that the ratings for the mythological series were higher than those for the football. As I waited for well- built men to take to the football field, I ended up watching well-built men in faux-gold jewellery fighting with magical weapons instead. Mahabharat was aired just prior to each day’s opening matches. I first came across this Bahasa Indonesia Mahabharat in June, when I began to tune into ANTV every evening for its exclusive regional broadcasts of the FIFA World Cup. The Indonesian channel ANTV bought the rights to Mahabharat from Star Plus, and started airing a dubbed version of the show this March. The winner, who will be announced at the end of December, will travel with Sheikh to India. Every Saturday, the women line up on a stage, dubbed the “ bharata yudha” zone, and Sheikh sends one of them home. But in this case the hero happens to be someone who speaks no Indonesian, and had only been in the country for about a month when the show started: the Indian actor Shaheer Sheikh, who played Arjuna in the 2013 television series Mahabharat, an extravagant adaptation of the mythological epic by Star Plus.
This was the set for the live broadcast of Panah Asmara Arjuna’s second weekly elimination round.Īdvertised as a “ maha reality show”, the Indonesian series follows a familiar trope: 15 young women start out sharing a house, and compete in daily challenges as they vie for the attention of a desirable hero. Strobe lights criss-crossed the auditorium, and an overwrought score thundered from the sound system. Inside, a stage featuring two giant gilt thrones was being readied. A brawny, black-maned figure wielding a bow and arrow pouted suggestively from a phalanx of promotional banners that lined the street, with the title Panah Asmara Arjuna - Arjuna’s Arrow of Love - printed above. On a Saturday afternoon in late September, gaggles of hijab-clad women, many with young children in tow, swarmed outside the closed gates of an auditorium in Taman Mini, a popular recreational park in east Jakarta.
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