This is probably the first time I am writing a review for a book, outside of Goodreads. And man, while I thought peer-reviewing research journal articles was hard, reviewing a 200+ page book definitely seems harder.
As a self-confessed fan of Mahabharatha, literally the great epic, I have always found the Ramayana a little too underwhelming in terms of character portrayal. The reason may be because of the epoch (yuga) that it is set in, where the characters are portrayed as either all white or all black, seldom with shades of gray as in the Mahabharatha. It could also be attributed to the type of books I have read previously on the Ramayana (the Rajagopalachari version, Sita by Devdutt Pattanaik and Asura by Anand Neelkantan). But, I was proven (mostly) wrong by the first book in the series, Ramayana - The Game of Life called The Rise of the Sun Prince.
The Game of Life. For a title, this is a pretty ambitious choice, I felt. After getting to somewhere around 50 pages in the book, I realized why the author named the book that way. A few obvious, a few not-so-obvious, a lot of not-at-all-obvious pearls of wisdom on life, correlating to the happenings in the epic are thrown at us. Most of these are in the form of footnotes which are plenty in number, and can get quite distracting too till you get used to them. (Jaya and Sita by Devdutt Pattanaik have similar treatment with respect to trivia, however all of them appear at once at the end of one chapter.)
The main protagonist of this Bala kaanda is actually Vishwamitra, the sage king who has a wonderful chapter on his transition from a king to brahmarishi. A lot of the trivia about the brothers and sister of Ravana, the 350 wives of Dasaratha, the story of the bow that Rama breaks at Janaka’s palace, the ancestors of Janaka are something that I was unaware of. The whole premise is something that is known to any Indian kid who has seen or heard of Ramayana stories in one form or another. But it is this trivia that makes a lot of these epic interpretations interesting and the book definitely delivered a lot more than I expected.
The language is pretty simple and perhaps aimed at multiple markets. One - as a story for someone reading the Ramayana for the first time. Two - as a book to correlate life’s happenings with what the Sun prince faced.
The beauty of the book lies in the overall feel where that it gives. Yes, the book can get philosophical, but it does manage to get so without getting too preachy. Another attribute is that the author is aware that he is dealing with material that has had multiple interpretations, but he still manages to not get influenced by the base material he has (Valmiki Ramayana and Kamba Ramayana) and manages to get his points across with little effort.
A few things that I look forward to in the forthcoming books in the series:
- hopefully better placed footnotes,
- a little deeper analysis into the psyche of the person called Rama, and not the Vishnu avathaar,
- a more conversational narrative than a biographical narrative, and
- no preview to the next book in the series. It is best to end the book at a particular point/juncture which is very significant.
As thanks to this blogadda book review program, I have been able to write a blogpost after really long. I hope this is just a start!
This review is a part of the biggest Book Review Program for Indian Bloggers. Participate now to get free books!
As a self-confessed fan of Mahabharatha, literally the great epic, I have always found the Ramayana a little too underwhelming in terms of character portrayal. The reason may be because of the epoch (yuga) that it is set in, where the characters are portrayed as either all white or all black, seldom with shades of gray as in the Mahabharatha. It could also be attributed to the type of books I have read previously on the Ramayana (the Rajagopalachari version, Sita by Devdutt Pattanaik and Asura by Anand Neelkantan). But, I was proven (mostly) wrong by the first book in the series, Ramayana - The Game of Life called The Rise of the Sun Prince.
The Game of Life. For a title, this is a pretty ambitious choice, I felt. After getting to somewhere around 50 pages in the book, I realized why the author named the book that way. A few obvious, a few not-so-obvious, a lot of not-at-all-obvious pearls of wisdom on life, correlating to the happenings in the epic are thrown at us. Most of these are in the form of footnotes which are plenty in number, and can get quite distracting too till you get used to them. (Jaya and Sita by Devdutt Pattanaik have similar treatment with respect to trivia, however all of them appear at once at the end of one chapter.)
The main protagonist of this Bala kaanda is actually Vishwamitra, the sage king who has a wonderful chapter on his transition from a king to brahmarishi. A lot of the trivia about the brothers and sister of Ravana, the 350 wives of Dasaratha, the story of the bow that Rama breaks at Janaka’s palace, the ancestors of Janaka are something that I was unaware of. The whole premise is something that is known to any Indian kid who has seen or heard of Ramayana stories in one form or another. But it is this trivia that makes a lot of these epic interpretations interesting and the book definitely delivered a lot more than I expected.
The language is pretty simple and perhaps aimed at multiple markets. One - as a story for someone reading the Ramayana for the first time. Two - as a book to correlate life’s happenings with what the Sun prince faced.
The beauty of the book lies in the overall feel where that it gives. Yes, the book can get philosophical, but it does manage to get so without getting too preachy. Another attribute is that the author is aware that he is dealing with material that has had multiple interpretations, but he still manages to not get influenced by the base material he has (Valmiki Ramayana and Kamba Ramayana) and manages to get his points across with little effort.
A few things that I look forward to in the forthcoming books in the series:
- hopefully better placed footnotes,
- a little deeper analysis into the psyche of the person called Rama, and not the Vishnu avathaar,
- a more conversational narrative than a biographical narrative, and
- no preview to the next book in the series. It is best to end the book at a particular point/juncture which is very significant.
As thanks to this blogadda book review program, I have been able to write a blogpost after really long. I hope this is just a start!
This review is a part of the biggest Book Review Program for Indian Bloggers. Participate now to get free books!
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