These days people tweet mass on Sundays. My fellow Beliefnet blogger, Jana Riess (of Flunking Sainthood) is even tweeting the ENTIRE bible, one tweet per chapter–she calls it the Twible. (Yes, really, Jana is doing this–it’s awesome. And her tweets are hilarious.)
In a recent New York Times article, “Mythic Past, Resonating in the Present,” Somini, Sengupta wonders about whether it makes sense to use film to express the great, epic poems of Hinduims as opposed to say, tweeting them:
“Can an epic poem, composed more than 2,000 years ago and transcribed in an ancient language that only a handful of people can read, thrive in the age of Twitter? In India, yes. And not just one epic but two. The most talked-about movies in India this summer are based on the two great epics of Hinduism: the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. “The Mahabharata and Ramayana, they sort of permeate our consciousness,” said Bibek Debroy, an economist who published the first of a 10-volume unabridged English translation of the Mahabharata in April. “The stories are deeply ingrained in the minds of Indians.”
On the film version of the Mahabharata–it’s much like, The Godfather?

“Mr. [Prakash] Jha’s latest film, “Raajneeti” — the Hindi word for politics — has been described as a cross between “The Godfather” and the Mahabharata. It is a searing, overdrawn critique of contemporary Indian democracy. A lot of blood is spilled over the spoils of political power. A family destroys itself. There is no redemption. . . . In “Raajneeti” a star-filled ensemble cast plays the gods and mortals of the Mahabharata. Draupadi, one of its central female characters, drives a convertible; Arjuna, the reluctant warrior, is an American-trained scholar of Romantic poetry; Karna, the doomed orphan, is the ill-fated leader of outcaste Dalits in a city slum. The film has struck a nerve with Indian audiences, becoming one of the biggest hits of the year.”
The second film “Raavan,” which takes on the Ramayana, is apparently just as popular. Both movies are apparently this summer’s blockbuster hits in India.
Perhaps soon, someone will take up these texts in Twitter, too.