Stolen Hope – Shubha Vilas – Book Review

Goodreads blurb: In the evil labyrinths of Dandakaranya forest, human values are put to test. Rama’s righteousness, Lakshmana’s loyalty and Sita’s endurance reflect our own sense of values and judgment in difficult times. The story unfolds the facets of human life – the conflict and the trickery, the praise and the slander and, above all, the hope and the despair in the eventful forest life of the Exiled Royals.

Stolen Hope is about extreme deception and extreme love. It is about arrogant power and deep devotion. With every twist and turn, Rama, Sita and Lakshmana find themselves robbed of whatever and whoever they value most.

Exploring the dynamics of human relations – between father and son, husband and wife, teacher and disciple – and the complex game of power and greed, Stolen Hope mirrors our own dilemmas in the modern world and teaches us how we must overcome them.

Seek courage when everything, including hope, is stolen.

—————————–

This book picks up from when the trio of Rama, Lakshmana and Sita begin settling down in the Dandakaranya forest. The author narrates the story of how this forest got around to being named so and the events that led to their presence there. As was the case with the earlier two books, this one also takes small detours into stories of related characters as well as some of the places that the trio visit on their journeys during their exile, and the best part about these stories is that they only end up adding that much more meat and heft to the timeless epic that the Ramayana is.

All the earlier versions of this epic I had read were abridged versions and more or less stuck to the main story, ie, the narrative arc of Rama, Lakshmana and Sita, and that probably is the reason that I am thoroughly enjoying this particular retelling so much more. Each and every one of the smaller ‘side’ stories which form part of this retelling are making my overall experience of reading the entire series more than quite a bit. And coupled with my recent penchant and interest in Indian mythology I have to admit that I haven’t quite enjoyed a series of books as much as I am loving the entire The Game of Life series by Shubha Vilas.

In this book readers get a glimpse into Rama’s prowess with weapons and his smarts as a single warrior against thousands of rakshasas from Dushana and Khara’s army. And the entire episode of Sita being kidnapped by Ravana due to the chain of events set in motion by Surpanakha are also explained in great detail. We also get to see the rare occasion where Rama loses his composure and Lakshmana has to step in to cool him down and get his elder brother’s distressed mind working logically and objectively again. This episode proves to be quite pivotal in determining the true inner strength of Lakshmana and him taking center stage for a brief period of time.

In a nutshell, a worthy continuation of what promises to be an engaging series of books by Shubha Vilas.

Click here to purchase the book from Flipkart [Link] or Amazon [Link].

—————————–

A review copy of this book was provided to me by the author in return for an unbiased and honest review of the same.

The Curse of Brahma – Jagmohan Bhanver – Book Review

Goodreads blurb: The man who became a Brahmarishi…

The curse that banished him to the hell of hells…

And the revenge that threatens to destroy the three worlds…

When Lord Brahma, the God of Creation, banishes his star pupil from Swarglok in a fit of rage, he does not foresee that his decision will alter the fate of the three worlds. Mortally wounded, and anguished at Brahma’s unfair punishment, his pupil struggles to survive in Tamastamah Prabha, the hell of hells. In time, he becomes the Dark Lord, the most feared figure in Pataal Lok, who swears to destroy Brahma.

The power of the Dark Lord soon begins to make its presence felt in the mortal world. Vasudev, the brave prince of Bateshwar, becomes the hunter of Asura assassins; his closest friend, Kansa, almost dies while trying to save his sister from a group of deadly monsters; and the most valiant kings in Mrityulok turn over to the dark side, driven by forces beyond their control.

Only one person threatens the Dark Lord’s well-laid plans – Devki, the beautiful princess of Madhuvan, who is destined to give birth to the warrior Krishna.

Will the Dark Lord allow Krishna – the person who has been prophesied to destroy him – to be born?

——————-

I know that this is the n^th time I am repeating this, but most readers of my blog will know the interest I have in Indian mythology and various retelling of some well-known stories from the same such as the Mahabharata, Ramayana and the Puranas. And therefore, when The Curse of Brahma by Jagmohan Bhanver was published, I immediately jumped out of my seat and requested for a review copy of the same, and man, was it the right decision or what?

Right from the ‘get-go’, the author takes us on a joyride of SwargLok, MrityuLok (quite a funny name for earth I must admit) and PataalLok, the celestials, the gods, and most importantly The Dark Lord (inspired by Lord Voldemort or Voldemor’, in my humble opinion).

As the blurb reads, trouble, big trouble, is brewing in the mortal world as The Dark Lord is well poised to unleash revenge against the injustice meted out to him by Brahma all of two hundred years ago. By planning to use the mortal world to launch an all-out attack on SwargLok, he seems well set to extract his revenge on his master. However, what he doesn’t quite account for is the fact that the celestial trilogy, or at least two of them, Shiva and Vishnu have surreptitiously been following his activities over the years and have plans of their own to prevent any unnecessary bloodshed in the mortal realm. Do The Dark Lord’s plans bear fruition or do Shiva and Vishnu manage to thwart them will be answered only in the next two books of this trilogy, but suffice to say that this book is a brilliant first book in what promises to be a lovely trilogy.

Where this book scores really high is in how the plot is formed and the shape the narrative takes. Rather than resort to the now popular method of shifting the action from one setting to another resulting in creating an unnecessary tension in the proceedings, the author takes his time in patiently setting up the surrounding, the characters, their back-stories, their motivations and gradually keeps the narrative moving forward. He is not in a hurry to move at a breakneck pace and is content letting the story gradually build on the readers. After all, given that he is retelling the story of the birth of Krishna (at least in this book), he uses all of the tact and adroitness that Krishna himself will go on to display later on in his life.

While the author has taken considerable liberties with the retelling, the fact that the narrative remains coherent and believable despite the significant deviations from what is usually told speaks volumes for the research that he has done on Krishna and his life, and also for the confidence in his story-telling abilities as well. Not once was I bored during the entire book and the pages kept turning themselves. This is because of the fact that the narrative itself is so well structured and juicy enough that the book pretty much reads itself.

So, what are you waiting for? Go ahead and buy the book from Flipkart [Link] or Amazon [Link].

—————

A review copy of this book was provided to me by the publishers in return for an honest and unbiased review.

The Rise of Hastinapur – Sharath Komarraju – Book Review

Goodreads blurb: For the story of the Great War is also the story of the women…

Amba lives for revenge, but circumstances and men conspire against her. Will her daughter bring her the only salvation she seeks?

Kunti stakes all to free her brother Vasudev and his wife Devaki. Yet it is the groom choosing ceremony that will define her life.

Gandhari too has come of age, and is faced with a difficult choice: she must marry the blind prince of Hastinapur if she is to save her kingdom from the certain ruin it faces due to Hastinapur’s deceit.

In the background, Bhishma pulls the strings, making alliances and marriages, devising new strategies, ever increasing the might of Hastinapur.

This is the Mahabharata like you’ve never seen it before.

————-

The toughest job for any author penning a series of books is to keep each successive book in the series just that tad better than the previous one. But going by how Sharath Komarraju has written The Rise of Hastinapur, the sequel to The Winds of Hastinapur [Link to my review], this seems like cakewalk for him. If I thought the first book was awesome, then I truly have run out of exclamations and superlatives to describe the second one.

While a simplistic opinion of this book could be summarized as a point of view of the Mahabharatha as seen from the principal women characters’ eyes, such a description would be doing grave injustice to the extremely imaginative manner in which Sharath has written both books in the series so far. In fact, I would even go far enough to recommend this book to anybody who has actually read/seen the great epic and has disliked it. I challenge them to read these books and then tell me that they still find it boring, or even worse, they find a lot of incidents and characters wrong in the story itself.

Sharath seems to have taken it upon himself to ensure that readers see this great epic in a completely new light and rather than justifying all the incidents under the guise of destiny or whatever is pre-ordained shall happen irrespective of anybody’s best efforts otherwise, the author has clearly laid out a plan where all that happens in the book somehow appears to be the ‘master-plan’ of a character. Who that is, he reveals in the last four pages of The Rise of Hastinapur.

Suffice to say that anybody who has read the first book must compulsorily read this one, no two ways about that. And even if you haven’t read the first book I would strongly encourage you to buy both books and read them back to back immediately. If not for anything else, at least to enjoy a masterful retelling of an all-time favorite story, that of the Mahabharata.

The following are a few things which I thoroughly enjoyed in the book (spoiler-free points below) –

From the story thread involving Amba

• Amba’s moves to gain Vichitraveerya’s trust and get back into the political scheme of things at Hastina.
• The reason as to why Amba had to finally leave the court of Hastina.
• Amba’s desperate attempts to extract revenge from Bhishma.
• Amba’s revenge takes a completely different hue, albeit with the same consequences for Bhishma.

From the story thread involving Kunti

• Durvasa’s role in Pritha (Kunti)’s life.
• The interesting story behind the birth of Kunti’s first child, who in due course of time would grow up to become Karna.

From the story thread involving Gandhari

• The interesting story of the ‘gold standard’ being followed in Gandhar and how it was smartly used by Hastinapur politically.
• The role that the Celestials had to play in Gandhari’s life.
• The usage of official letters as a medium to communicate the esacalating tensions between Gandhara and Hastinapur.
• Gandhari’s ability to ‘see’ things even though she ‘cannot’.
• The seeds of revenge sown in Gandhari’s mind, a crucial point for moving the story of the Great Epic forward.

And finally

The last chapter of the book leaves readers a little breathless, when they come to know who it is that has been moving the pieces of this gigantic chessboard so far. However, the intentions behind these moves are still a little baffling, especially coming from this character.

All said and done, the end of the second book in this series leaves readers licking their lips, with parched throats waiting for the next book in the series to be published. And going by the two books, the rest of the series promises to be mind-blowing, to say the least.

Click here to pre-order the book on Amazon [Link].

———————–

I was selected as an ‘early reader’ of this book by the author, however, the review itself is unbiased and uninfluenced by him in any form or fashion.

The Winds of Hastinapur – Sharath Komarraju – A second reading

Given that I am going to read the second book of The Hastinapur series by Sharath Komarraju (The Rise of Hastinapur) sometime soon as an ‘early reader’ of the book, I thought I would quickly re-read the first one in the series The Winds of Hastinapur so that I could brush up my memories of the story so far. And man, did this book take away my breath yet again or what.

As I have mentioned in my earlier review [Link to review], the first half of the book sets the stage for what is truly an unique retelling of the Mahabharata, reimagining the origins to quite a large extent while staying extremely honest both to the epic itself and the characters as well. While the character motivations for their actions are probably a little different when compared to the original epic, the fact that they don’t stray too far from the original premise of Veda Vyasa’s epic shows the reverence that the author has for it.

The following are some of the more striking incidents in the plot and its treatment that stayed back with me during the second reading of this book.

1- The extreme sacrifices made by the Ladies of the River in ensuring that they lived out their lives burdened with the memories of all the earlier Ladies of the River before them. Even to imagine a situation like this gives me a headache. As it is, memories (good or bad) from one’s own lifetime are bad enough to give me a headache, then just imagine living out a lifetime with memories of more than one previous lives.

2- Devavrata’s farsightedness and ability to put the greater good of the greater number of people when he decided to leave Meru and search his destiny with his father Shantanu in Hastina.

3- Satyavati, also called Matsyagandha, her thoughts on virginity and to paraphrase “She knew now that that was virginity; being pure in thought and action, being unafraid as long as your actions have nothing immoral about them; and taking pride in the gifts that the Gods have given you, and spit back on the shame that the world insisted on heaping upon you.”

4- Ironical situations – The price Satyavati pays for having extracted the promise from Devavrata, despite having both her sons ascend the throne of Hastina, both of them didn’t even last for more than couple of years as the ruler. Despite keeping his oath of never ascending the throne of Hastina himself and ruling the kingdom, the irony of Devavrata having to run the kingdom all by himself for more than his fair share of time.

5-In case you wondered why the book is called what it is called, its last line has the answer to this question.

In a nutshell, if you are still wondering if this book is worth reading, then you just haven’t read either my original review or this post carefully enough.

Don’t wait anymore, purchase the book from Flipkart [Link] or Amazon [Link].

The story of Surya and Aruna

Regular readers of Mahabore’s Mumblings will know my affinity towards Indian mythology and the lesser known tales from the same. This post marks my return to this genre after a reasonably long hiatus.

Here’s hoping you enjoy the same, and if you do so, let me know in the Comments Section below the post, and it also goes without saying, please share the post with all your friends and families as well.

So, without further ado, here goes the story of Surya, the Sun god and Aruna, his charioteer.

———–

When the ocean of milk was churned and Amrita, the divine nectar of immortality was obtained, one of the asuras, Rahu disguised himself as a deva and sat down in line to drink the same. However, Surya managed to see through Rahu’s disguise and prevented Mohini from serving him the Amrita. Due to this Rahu had a longstanding grudge with Surya.

Despite the fact that all the devas knew about this enemity of Rahu’s with Surya, they did not do anything about it, and this enraged Surya to no end. He was of the opinion that the devas, being his kinsmen should have helped him get rid of Rahu’s threat once and for all.

Another version of the story has that, Rahu, enraged by Surya’s action swallows him whole and Surya is saved only when Lord Vishnu intervenes and Rahu is forced to regurgitate him. Surya blames the other devas for not coming to his aid when the asura Rahu swallowed him and insulted him so.

In any case, an angered Surya had decided to destroy all the worlds with his fierce heat.

As Surya was preparing himself to rise from the eastern kingdoms with the intention of burning through all the worlds with his heat, the great rishis approached the gods and asked them to intervene. The gods along with the rishis went to Brahma for a solution. Brahma confirmed their worst fears when he told them that Surya intended to destroy all the worlds with his heat, but he also reassured them when he told them that what was happening was pre-ordained and therefore a solution for this issue had also been determined beforehand.

He informed the gods and the rishis about how Aruna, the intelligent son of Kashyapa with a well-developed upper torso had recently been appointed the charioteer of Surya with the sole purpose of overcoming this particular situation. By doing his duty as a charioteer and staying in front of Surya all the time, Aruna shall absorb all the fierce energy emanated by Surya in his anger and shall ensure the well-being of all the worlds.

Aruna, having the divine providence of the reason for his birth, did just as Brahma described and ensured that Surya’s anger at the other gods did not result in the destruction of the worlds.