All about Ranbhoomi - Kurukshetra Boardgame

Stories of Panchtantra

The episode features an interview with Gaurav Tiwari, the founder of Sutradhar, regarding the launch of his new board game, Ranbhoomi - Kuru

Key takeaways

• Gaurav Tiwari founded Sutradhar to bridge the gap between modern technology and traditional storytelling for children.
• The Ranbhoomi - Kurukshetra board game uses tokens representing various kingdoms like Hastinapur and Matsya to simulate the Mahabharata war.

Main topics

• Launch of Ranbhoomi - Kurukshetra board game
• Preserving Indian heritage through gamification

Notable quotes

If the foundation of a life is better, then the coming time becomes even brighter.

Conclusion

The episode highlights an innovative approach to cultural education th

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:01) There is no one who has come to break us. Our parts have not come suddenly. Life has called us continuously. We have not come here suddenly. Whenever sutradhar comes in discussions, whenever there is a discussion about sutradhar, then always we face the same thing that this is a journey of sutradhar. Speaker 1 (0:32) This is the story of a man who has been through a lot of hardship. This is also a game for children because somewhere or the other, the founders of Sutradhar, Gaurav Tiwari, believe that if the foundation of a life is better, then the coming time becomes even brighter. So I will welcome Gaurav Tiwari ji. Today we are going to talk about... Speaker 1 (1:28) So, Gauravji, namaskar. Speaker 2 (1:31) Namaskar. Speaker 1 (1:33) First of all, I would like you to tell our viewers that this journey, this whole research and how it came up, how it had to face difficulties in executing it, how you explained to people what we were actually going to do, then when the outcome of that research came out, then what was the feeling in your mind? Speaker 2 (2:04) Before we start, I would like to tell you about Sutradhar. The journey of Sutradhar started almost 3 years ago. My daughter was 3 years old at that time. My parents had come to Mumbai. I used to live in Mumbai at that time. It was the 3rd birthday of my daughter. My parents had come to Mumbai. Speaker 2 (2:33) One day suddenly, and during the pandemic, travel was getting stopped. Lockdown was not announced yet. But restrictions were being imposed gradually. So, because of that, we were all at home. My job was in Kolkata. So, travel was stopped. So, I was at home. We could not go to Kolkata. Speaker 2 (2:57) So, in between I saw that my mother is reading Shiv Puran and my father, I bought a book of Panchatantra to tell stories to my daughter. That Sanskrit and Hindi one. So, I saw my father is reading that book. So, those who never read anything other than newspaper in life, they are reading Panchatantra because in Mumbai obviously their life was a little lonely. because there was not as much social life as they were used to. And my daughter was watching some shows on YouTube. Speaker 2 (3:34) So, I was struck by the difference between my childhood and my children's childhood. I understood two things in that. One is that when we were growing up, we lived in a joint family. There were many people in my house. There were my uncles and aunts, my grandparents, and other people. There were cousins. And among all of them... If you take any family member, there is someone in their family who knows how to narrate stories very well. And they narrate stories to their children. So in typical terms, you can say the story of grandmother and grandmother, but it is not necessary that they are grandmothers and grandmothers. In my case, my aunt used to narrate these stories a lot. So sometimes she narrated the story of Vaman Avatar, sometimes she narrated the story of Prahlad. So we grew up listening to such stories. Speaker 1 (4:27) The Speaker 2 (4:27) first thing is that our children are not getting that. Because we don't Speaker 1 (4:30) live Speaker 2 (4:30) in a joint family, so the environment is not there now that we can tell the story of a child of any family or of any age. And the second thing is that now the technology or the access they have has also changed. When we were growing up, we didn't have the phone, YouTube and watched some videos. Correct? So, in that case, if we try to tell the story to the children, knowing that they have a TV, phone and all that is available, then can they be engaged in the story in the same way? Speaker 2 (5:10) So these two questions came to my mind and I started this journey of Sutradhar. I joined some of my friends who became co-founders in this journey. And then we made small stories from Mahabharata, Ramayana, Puranas, and children's stories. Like if you read Mahabharata, you will find 40-45 stories which are called moral stories. These stories are also in Mahabharata. To teach children what happened to Gidhar or Gamandi tree. Speaker 2 (6:00) We launched our app and uploaded it on the internet. Many parents were asking how to introduce children to Bharat Ramayana. The stories are fine. But when you are competing, if you show my child to TV, Elsa, Speaker 2 (6:26) Disney's stories and you show it to the director's video of Aruni and Rukmini. So cinematic value wise, obviously Disney has a lot of money and they make very good quality content. So the child will be more attracted to it. So we also had that disadvantage. So, we had a dependency on parents. If parents want, we can make them tell stories and they can tell the children. So that the child doesn't spend much time on screen and there is bonding with the parents. And in this way, a family environment is created between the children and their parents. So this was the structure of the system. But we still felt that there is a disadvantage. The biggest disadvantage is that parents have less time and others, especially because they live in a nuclear family, many of the times both the parents are earning and going to work. There is less time. And after that, you expect that Mahabharat will read a book of 7000-8000 pages and then tell stories from it to the children. and the child is also curious about the Peppa Pig. So it is very challenging. But it is necessary because our culture and heritage is based on these stories. And if we don't tell these stories to our children and they don't get interested in it, then one day these stories can be lost. Speaker 2 (8:03) and this can be a big problem so to find a solution to this problem we said instead of giving children stories through phone or TV they should be involved in some fun activities and we launched jigsaw puzzles thinking that jigsaw puzzle will be done in 5-10 minutes and the child will be engaged in it and then he will see what kind of picture it is and he will get curious about it. So he can see his story. We have it in our app and we have started posting many stories on YouTube. So the child will see the story there and he will like it. He will understand and the association will be built that this is Kumbhakaran, this was killed by Shri Ram, what was his story. This will create curiosity among the kids and they will want to explore it further and learn more about it. If you approach it this way, then the competition will no longer exist. The journey towards this story has come from a different path. If we try to compete with Disney on the same path, then we will not be able to do it. Because as I said, we don't have that much budget. that we could make that level of content. It is possible that we can make it in future and we would like to make it but we cannot do it now. So it is not like that if you, I tell people that if you are hungry then you will not wait for rasgulla in the plate, as soon as you get the roti you will start eating. Rasgulla will come later, when it is time for dessert, if it doesn't come then your stomach is full. So, I started to move forward with that thought process. If you see the stories in the app, then it is very much with the basic storyline and basic artwork. Then we did some more improvement in it. The quality of the content has also improved. Music was also introduced. We started recording with professional voice over artists. Speaker 1 (10:06) After that, when we got physical activities Speaker 2 (10:10) and people bought and shared their feedback that they liked it. And many people posted their children's photographs and videos on YouTube. We thought that this is good and we should utilize it and double down on it. So, every child doesn't like puzzles. Yesterday I was talking to someone and he said that generally people who play board games don't play puzzles and those who play puzzles don't play board games. There is very little overlap. So, our question was how to introduce the story of Mahabharata to children. So, I read Mahabharata three times in the last three years. Speaker 2 (10:54) We have read the entire Mahabharata. We have read the Gita Press Mahabharata in Hindi with Speaker 1 (10:58) the Speaker 2 (10:58) translation of Sanskrit shlokas. We have read Speaker 1 (11:01) the Speaker 2 (11:01) translation Speaker 1 (11:02) of Sri Speaker 2 (11:02) Mohan Ganguly ji. And very recently we have read the translation of Vivek Debraj ji. So after reading all this, when you revisit any literature again and again, then Mahabharata is such a literature that every time you get to understand something new, you discover something new. So, when these war chapters came, I thought it was so fascinating that the explanation and detail that Vedavyash ji has written, I have never seen it in any literature or cinema till today. Speaker 2 (11:45) I used to imagine that Bhim was running and elephants were running on the army and good background music was playing. You know that peppy music Hans Zimmer style and one elephant fell from the donkey and fought. So this was very much in my mind. Speaker 1 (12:02) So I thought why not Speaker 2 (12:06) Imagination is very important for children. I have three children and I know that they have no limitations. So now we cannot make business style content but can I give children the imagination to think in their mind that what would have happened if this happened? How would it have happened? And keeping this in mind, a thought process developed that why not make it in the form of a game. Speaker 2 (12:55) uh What is the board representing? Speaker 2 (13:05) So select some key battles. And this is also a problem that when you design a game, you always try to double down on a popular thing. So for example, if you ask someone to make a game on Mahabharat, then he will think that maybe you can play as Arjun. You can play like Abhimanyu. But I said that if we do that, then their fate is decided. Everyone knows what happened with Arjun in the war, everyone knows what happened with Abhimanyu in the war, everyone knows what happened with Satyaki. We did not want to change that storyline because we wanted to avoid any mischief with Mahabharata. So, one solution was to find out whether after the war, both sides were dead or one side was dead. As you can see in Maharashtra, Ashwathama Kripacharya and Kartavarma Pandavas were alive. Even Sanjay was alive. If you look at the Pandavas side, there were also many other Pandavas who were alive. Speaker 2 (14:12) There would be other soldiers who would have survived. Like Yudhishthir explains later, recalls, that so many people died, so many people disappeared, so many people survived. So all that we said with care, why not, the game you are playing, you are playing like a common soldier. So either you are part of the Kaurava army or you are part of the Pandava army. Now this board is like a circle of religion, that is why it is also a circle in our people. So, the Dharam Chakra or the Karma Chakra or whatever you call it, the board is a battle. You are in that battle. So, if you think in one way, you are playing against the board. So, whether you are Kauravas