Kurukshetra - Aryavarta Chronicles #3 - [Book Review]

Kurukshetra by Krishna Udayasankar
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A few weeks back, I was in a discussion with author Krishna Udaysankar on BlogAdda’s chat on mythological fiction. In general, I am of the view that a lot of the happenings in our epics are left open to interpretation and it is always refreshing to see someone go down an untraveled path while exercising their creativity. The author, in the discussion, mentioned that a lot of details differ in editions including critical editions, and we just assume that the popular version is the ‘correct’ one. I could not have agreed with the author Ms. Krishna on this more, and this perhaps is where the Krishna Udaysankar’s trilogy ‘Aryavarta Chronicles’ stands out. A retelling of the Mahabharatha standing in a very stable way in a very new realm, including a (fictitious) plot point that mostly works, Aryavarta Chronicles is a wonderful journey from start to finish. The focus of this post will essentially be on the third book of the trilogy ‘Kurukshetra,’ but there will be references to the first two books ‘Govinda’ and ‘Kauravas’ in a few places in the post.

For the fact that Mahabharata got me back to reading, I am usually keen on reading any interpretation of the epic that shows up. Upon hearing about the Aryavarta Chronicles and the author (and her credentials, I must say) my interest was piqued. With BlogAdda having this third book for review, it was no brainer for me to apply and ensure that I had read the first two books before the third one. I was tempted to try this one as a standalone, but a friend mentioned that flow and the understanding of the characters would be better if I read the first two books. (More on this a little later in the post.) I got the first two books, and it formed an integral part of my mornings for six days when I read it on the bus (my first time with continued reading on the bus).

Among the retellings of the epic Mahabharatha, I was most fascinated by two books for two different reasons: the character analysis in Irawati Karwe’s Yuganta: The End of an Epoch and general theme of M.T. Vasudevan Nair’s Bhima: Lone Warrior (though I am tempted to add Jaya by Devdutt Pattanaik to the list!). I can safely say that the Aryavarta Chronicles is going to feature in this list.

A portrayal of the lesser-known characters in a very new dimension, Kurukshetra starts at where Kauravas ended: a hint of the declaration of a war between the cousins. While many a version have written about the epic and the war in great depth, Krishna adds in a premise featuring a section of people called the Firewrights and a Secret Keeper. The reasons for many happenings in the epic are attributed to the Firewrights, and this includes the occurences of events including Dharma marrying Panchali and the empire expansion with the annexure of many a kingdom in Aryavarta (described in detail in Book 2).

Who are the Firewrights, what do they want, what is their ancestry and why is that the First borns are involved in the occurences along with the Firewrights? These are all the questions that Krishna tries to pose in the first two books and answer them (mostly satisfactorily) in the Kurukshetra. The fact that the Firewright theory stemmed from one of the first few people of the Kaurava family is indeed interesting and I quite liked how the author blended the happening in the last year of the exile of Dharma and his brothers to this.
There were many thing that had the book going great for me. Firstly, the writing. The author takes into account the intelligence of the reader and leaves quite a few things open for interpretation or for the reader to figure out himself. In an age, when story-telling can mean jotting down a screenplay lazily, Krishna makes a wonderful effort to introduce elements into the story which have meaning much later in the story, and it is up to the reader to connect those. Secondly, there was no God like stature to any of the characters, including Govinda. For example, the fact that the shaming of Panchali did not have a divine angle to it made you sympathize with the character a lot more. In addition, Govinda is shown as a selfish character for the most part (and there is a reason to it), and this I guess makes the character a lot more relatable. Thirdly, the main characters in this retelling included the characters that are mostly mentioned in the other versions to drive the story. With Dhristadymna, Shikhandin, Ashwattama, Sanjaya, Vyasa Dwaipayana, and Suka, forming a major chunk of the characters on who the story is focused on, it is refreshing to see the author not adopting the safe route for the epic. Even though a lot of the other characters including Pritha (Kunthi), Gandhaari, and Dhritarashtra, do not get enough screen time in the book, it doesn’t seem to affect the premise.

Two more things that I loved about the book were the innocent romance that Abhimanyu and Uttara had in the first part of the book including the days leading up to the war. I would definitely love to read a short piece by the author solely focusing on these two characters. One reason, she did not take Uttara’s love for Abhimanyu granted and two, Abhimanyu’s dignified (and perhaps awkward) behavior. The second thing was that in the book (and in the trilogy), a different side of Syoddhan is shown. One, he is not shown on the arrogant and angry cousin of Dharma. Two, his reason to declare a war of Dharma and his brothers is not for the kingdom as such. I would love to dwell on this for longer, but it would mean posting spoilers.

A couple of things that did not work for me in the third book was the identity of the secret keeper and in general, the (lack of) emphasis of the Firewrights. I was able to identify who the current secret keeper was in the first few pages of the book and perhaps that made me a little disappointed because I was waiting for the author to spring up a surprise and prove me wrong. Firewrights have been an intergral part of this trilogy with a major part of the second book focusing on the happenings involving them. Perhaps the author intended the third book to focus on the war more, and considering that the war was a result of the action of Firewrights, it is justified. A few minor typos, which do not matter in the larger scheme of things, could be corrected in the subsequent editions.

How does this book stand by itself and how is it as a part of the trilogy? I can safely say that for an enhanced reading experience and better background of the characters, especially considering the characters the author focuses on, the book is better read a trilogy. However, as a standalone too, the book is able to speak for itself, and the author provides sufficient background on a few of the key happenings the reader would need to know or remember from the first two book.

Overall, with some good writing which wonderfully compliments the reader’s intelligence, Kurukshetra (and overall the Aryavarta Chronicles) is a winner! I would love to see how Krishna Udaysankar’s next book turns out to be. And the TV show on this trilogy.

This review is a part of the biggest Book Review Program for Indian Bloggers. Participate now to get free books!


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The Mahabharata Quest: Alexander’s Secret [Book Review]

The market is definitely flooded with a lot of the mystery thrillers which borrow their themes from some form mythology and weave around a story with a search for something precious. Dan Brown, one of the authors who tasted great success with this type of premise, opened up this market to the mainstream readership. In India too, there have been authors like Ashwin Sanghi and Amish Tripathi who’ve experimented with genre and tasted commercial success. Christopher C Doyle, who debuted with The Mahabharata Secret last year, seems to have gotten the ingredients for this thriller right.

The premise has three to four equally important protagonists, among whom Vijay is seems like the main one, who are working against (and perhaps later, for) something called The Order. The Order has been working towards gathering some information which is rooted in the Macedonian mythology from the times of Alexander and his mother Olympias. The ‘secret’, if obtained, will work as a perfect cure for many a thing. What is this secret, how is it connected to Alexander, why does The Order have so much of significance, why do the Intelligence Bureau and characters like Vijay, Irfan, and many others matter to The Order is the premise of the story.

At 350+ pages, this book is an easy read and a page turner and manages to sustain the reader’s interest quite a bit. However, it has its slow moments when there is a lot of talk about the biotechnology aspect and also due to the repetitiveness with respect to the mythological aspect. The author tries to reach out to the average reader and hence over-explains a lot of things which could have been avoided. The language is definitely above average.

What really is to be appreciated about the book is the fact that the author, despite the convoluted premise, has researched quite a bit on the Macedonian history, the Mahabharata, and a little bit of the geography. At times, there is a mention of things from the previous book in a few places to help the author understand the rapport that a few of the characters share. But the book easily stands out as standalone book and the author has taken care to introduce mystery elements in the premise, which he says he will address in the subsequent books in the series. The book ends with some form of closure that the ‘good’ guys are still looking forward to something and the ‘bad’ guys have gotten the secret for now.

What the author could have worked on is on shortening the premise, as explained earlier. With some good editing, the book could have been a fast paced 250 page thriller. In addition, stretching a premise over multiple books sort of weakens the premise as such unless there is indeed a ‘WOW’ moment in each of the books. There are many such revealing moments in this book, but they all fall short of the WOW factor. Perhaps, the next few books can work towards that.

Overall, the Mahabharata Secret: Alexander’s Quest is a mostly decent thriller read with some interesting historical trivia and biotechnology lingo. 

This review is a part of the biggest Book Review Program for Indian Bloggers. Participate now to get free books!

Love Lasts Forever… [Book Review]

A mild curiosity crept in seeing the title of the book when BlogAdda first posted about this book being available for review. Having done some heavy reading including ‘A Fine Balance’, ‘The Glass Palace’ and ‘And The Mountains Echoed’ in the last few weeks, I was in mood for some light reading and requested for the book, assuming it was going to be one seeing the title.

The cheesiness in the title, unfortunately, does not stop there. Vikrant Khanna, the author of the book who is also in the merchant navy, has a mention on his website that, ‘the author has his finger strongly on the Indian youth's pulse.’ If this is what the pulse of the Indian youth is, I am beginning to worry. A little more.

The premise of the book is fairly simple. Two parallel stories with some love, rant-filled love one must say, the usual misunderstandings, a tragic moment, and some lighter moments (which in this book seem slightly gross); all of this coupled with a pirate drama in the background, you have your Love Lasts Forever.  I could go on about how cliched a lot of the premise and the romance seems, but since this seems to be the flavour of the ‘youth’, I suppose Vikrant may have a winner in his hands.

While Vikrant seems to have a reasonable grasp over English, he doesn’t resort to using bombastic words and uses a colloquial lingo for most of the book. Perhaps, his way of catering to The pulse. Some more attention could have been paid towards the grammatical correctness since there are quite a few instances where the book could have used more proofreading. Additionally, what ticked me big time was the use of the word ‘marriage’ in almost every situation that demanded the usage of the word ‘wedding.’ Agreed that the two words have unfortunately become interchangeable (not just in India), but I guess someone has to point it out and I guess I will do that here. The book has a statement ‘We had a long last night and we reached our home way past midnight after our marriage.’ While the intent of the statement was something, but it definitely reads in a different way.

Coming back to the premise, I seem to have severe dislike on how the fairer sex is portrayed in the book. While the older character Shikha had her own reasons to act the way she had to, as a reader I felt bad for how poorly Aisha’s character was developed, in addition to it being shown in such poor light. I will not dwell too much on the gender-biasedness that the book has to offer, since many ‘contemporary’ Indian writers who cater to the same youth population tend to do so as well and the aspiring writers seem to draw inspiration from that.

Love Last Forever, overall, was a quick read on a lazy afternoon which did not involve too much of thinking while reading it. But it did serve as some food for thought on how we perceive love and relationships. The book succeeds on that front. If only the current generation which includes me saw love in a different way, the world would be a much better place to live in.

This review is a part of the biggest Book Review Program for Indian Bloggers. Participate now to get free books!

www.MarryAGhost.com [Book Review]

(A book review for BlogAdda)

If the first few pages of a book has quotes by Rumi, I am usually sold. Though it doesn’t take too much on the author’s creativity to reproduce the lines of Rumi, the selection of the quotes from hundreds of very relevant quotes is no easy task. Abhimanyu Jha, the author of www.MarryAGhost.com won my attention right there. Whether he managed to hold it on or not is a different story in itself, but still 10 points to the selection of the Rumi quote and 5 more points to each of the other quotes in the preface.

MarryAGhost – One would wonder what sort of a title that is. While the back cover the book has a synopsis of the book (with spoilers), it was both a cheesy title, and a title that piqued my interest, at the same time. Having never heard of this author before, I cautiously proceeded to read this book and man, I was drawn. Call it guilty indulgence or the craving for a break with a lighter book (having read A Fine Balance and This Divided Island prior to this – both heavy book), I must say I quite enjoyed reading most part of the book.

The likeability of the book comes mainly with respect to the fact that the language is free-flowing and one need not invest too much time in trying to understand what is happening. There is also an advantage in that regard that there are just 4 main characters, with a couple more showing up at times. This minimal character count is perhaps easy on the light reader, and also you are drawn towards the main two characters greatly. The conversations between Maahi and Veeru are mostly not forced, as simple and realistic as what a couple would have (except that they are not a couple). I am almost tempted to use the spontaneous with respect to the premise, except for the fact that this spontaneity comes with a price.

What could the book have done better or what could Mr. Jha do with the second part of the book? Oh yes! There is a ‘To be continued!’ on the last page, and it is indeed a pity that the book doesn’t have a mention of whether it is a multi-part series. Well, I am going to definitely want to read the next part, and I hope it is the only other part. Coming back to what the author could have done better, the first thing that any new author is guilty of is the repetitive nature of the conversations. It is indeed understandable that the two main characters have (sort of) fallen for each other and are insecure about the others’ feelings. But bringing this up every now and then can get a little annoying. Second, the book requires a total suspension of belief, which is to be understood seeing the title, but it would have helped if there was a logical flow to a few things like how the characters landed in Goa (there is a logic, but a flawed one!)Thirdly, the language is pretty light on the brain especially because is mostly conversational. But I fail to understand why the author uses the F-word with hyphens at a few places and uses it in entirety elsewhere. And why even use it in the first place?

While the story in this first book ends at a pretty interesting point, what happens to Maahi, Veeru and the others involved at the end of the 14 days is something that I can’t, but will need to wait to check.

This madly in love ghost could use some of your love with a suspension of belief.

This review is a part of the biggest Book Review Program for Indian Bloggers. Participate now to get free books!

Good times....

I've been blogging a lot more compared to 2009, and on a few topics I'd never have thought I'd blog about. For instance, I'd never have penned something about my parents, if not for BlogAdda's Father's Day and Mother's Day contests. If not for their 'Moments of Madness' contest, a lot of my childish stuff would have never gotten showcased to the blogger world. And to think about it, I won an award for that entry too!

Life has many small things which are beautiful, worthy of some expression of thought! And a blog helps realize those.

Thank you BlogAdda, for featuring me as the notable newbie of the day! Something that made my day!

Moments of Madness

(This blog was one of the winning entries in the Moments of Madness contest by BlogAdda.)

Trying to categorize moments of madness can be quite challenging, especially in the life of a person who provides entertainment to his friends around, with his unintentionally funny antics. Listed below are a few of the trivial events in my life, which have brought the retarded nature in me to the forefront, and made me get amused at my own doings.

Cart thieves

A graduate student in US, who does not have access to a car to go to the nearby grocery store invariably struggles in carrying the couple of gallon-cans of milk, juice cartons, watermelons, along with other stuff, back home. Usually we pick up things from a market that is open beyond midnight, the best time for us poor souls, and walk all the way back home carrying them. A few stores would let us take the carts back home and pick up the carts the next day. But a few stores that weren’t generous enough, would have a magnetic sensor in their carts, and the cart would not move past the stores’ interiors.

A couple years back, myself and another partner in crime bought half the items in the store and not being able to carry the stuff, tried to lift the cart across the wall and miserably failed. This was a disastrous experiment and I vowed I would never try it again. But, 'laziness overcomes any vow'. Once again, we (a group of four this time) were there and as usual swiped our credit cards away to glory. I tried an age-old tested experiment on the cart then, just for fun. I lifted the cart’s front wheels and just pushed the cart, which stood, on its rear wheels alone. The trick worked, the cart wheels were not locked by the magnetic sensor.

Later, when we were on our midnight trip to the store once again, each of us took a cart to try the trick, and the trick didn’t work. The cartwheels were stuck. But my accomplice in crime saw a unique thing. It was just the front wheels that were locked, that too only from in front. So she gave us the ‘Nobel Laureate’ idea of pulling the cart backwards. And the cart moved with ease. Even though it meant complicated handling from our side, it did save us that day from having to lug back the groceries home.

Jump to (from) death

The time was 12:40am. The store that we frequent closes at 1am. It is only past midnight that, either me or my good friend would end up discovering that our houses will soon be drought-affected and we need to get some basic food. Basic food in some cases also includes watermelons, ice creams, flavored yogurt and more, thanks to the wonderful 45 degree centigrade summer weather we are in.

That night, to fight against the impending drought, we decided to make the trip to the grocery store. It was also a known fact that a goods train that would run longer than ten episodes of ‘Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi’, would pass near the store, thereby blocking access to the store. Hence we hurried up and walked towards to the store, only to hear the train engine from a distance. The Usain Bolts that we are, tried to run towards the track hoping to cross it before the train arrives. And we were probably a couple of meters away from the crossing, and we saw the train approaching, slowly though. Just like how a hungry monkey jumps to catch its food, no matter what the circumstances are, we just ran in front of the train to cross the track, with no thought of what might actually happen. And when I next opened my eyes, we were there, present on the other side of the track. And we looked back at the train, and it turns out that it had stopped midway. You surely can imagine the look on our faces then!

White Water Rafting with a White face

Once on a trip to the Great Smoky Mountain national park in Tennessee, we had dedicated an entire day to trails, hikes and white water rafting. The not-so-adventurous person that I am, didn’t want to venture into white water rafting. But my ever-persuasive friends (who doesn’t have such friends?) somehow convinced me into this. Upon reaching the spot and paying for it, we were made to sign an agreement that read: ‘I am responsible for my life, and severe injury or death may result in case of unforeseen circumstances.’ My heart skipped a beat, and I wanted to get away from them there as early as possible. But, I put up a brave face and got into the bus that took us to the river, where we were instructed on how to row and also provided some safety tips.

We got to our raft where our instructor made the five of us sit in appropriate positions, such that the raft was balanced. Two of the braver friends made it to the front, followed by the girls, followed by the instructor and me. Apparently, the level 3 and 4 rapids were the most common ones that day, and my heart skipped another beat (though I later learnt level 5 and 6 were the harder ones). Having heard horror stories about the instructors having to abandon a drowning rafter, in order to save the rest of them on the boat, I made up my mind to hold on to the grip on the raft. Wait – there was no grip or handle on the raft, all that I could do was to lock my foot inside the raft safely. Having done that, we embarked on our journey, and our instructors gave us good instructions, and we had a good time. There were three instances were the raft was about to capsize, but it ultimately didn’t happen. But my friend in front lost quite a bit of her hair, as a result of me trying to hold on to it for grip. And the end of the rafting trip, I vowed I would never ever go on one again. This nerve-racking experience was sufficient for a lifetime! The pictures taken during the rafting showed me as a white-faced coward, much to the amusement of my friends.

Good deeds Eclipsed

Recently, I was at the cinemas with two other friends to watch ‘The Karate Kid’. Walking towards the theater from the parking lot, we saw a girl in her teens trying to get a few chairs out of her car, and she requested us for help. Assuming the chair was for her old parents or handicapped friends, we helped her carry the chairs. On the way, upon enquiring what movie she was going to watch, I got to know it the teenage girls heartthrob Robert Pattinson starrer Eclipse, the third installment of the Twilight Series. I got a suspicion then, since the first show of the movie was not going to be screened until midnight. We continued talking, and took her chairs along and she pointed to her friends who were waiting there in the line to get the tickets. And who were the friends? Two other girls who surely were Twilight fans, and were munching away pop corn and chips to glory. That was the moment! I was mad at this girl, not for having made us carry it, but for having made us carry it for these two useless friends. And I got another reason to hate the Twilight series!

Final moment of madness

It was 11am. I’d just then woken up, for the nocturnal person that I am. It takes a while for me to get out of the bed and head to perform my mandatory morning chores. But on that day, I was fresher than ever, and I wanted to get the maximum out of the remainder of the morning, in terms of work. Heading to the restroom, and realizing after a flush that the water tank in the restroom is not getting filled up, is not the best thing that could happen to a person on a Monday morning. I open the tap in the washbasin and I get the coolest breeze of air that even my air-conditioner has failed to produce. And you surely can imagine the moment of madness then! I will not get into the details of the events that followed, but I sure realized that, it’s for a reason that people have said –‘early to bed, early to rise.’

This blog is in response to the BlogAdda contest ‘Moments of Madness’ sponsored by Pringoo.

I am Mad
I am Mad

Old wine in a new bottle, hoping it ages better!

I started writing my blog in 2006, and blogged regularly in 2007 and 2008, before taking a hiatus in 2009. And in 2010, I am back, thanks to the wonderful contests by BlogAdda and IndiBlogger.

It was meant to be a personal blog, and I had my name and sister's name together as the blog URL. However as time passed by, the blog seemed to cover a lot more thoughts than I'd imagined it to cover. Hence I'm renaming the URL of my Untitled Blog to Untitled-Thots.

And by doing this name change, I've lost all the comments that have been posted on my blog. Especially the few recent blogs had a lot of comments, thanks to better readership via BlogAdda. I am hoping those comments are restored by Google soon. Else, I shall take this as a clean slate and blog better and a lot more! (Google/Blogger restored the comments recently!)


Thank you for visiting my blog!

The Better Images from my Third Eye

Having done a lot of travel in the past couple years in India and abroad, I got some great opportunities to visit some extra-ordinary locales. I carried a camera to most of the trips, as any other traveler who considers it to be a key accessory. For that particular moment, our eyes are the best cameras and capture the images of the scene better than any other camera, especially with the imagination of the human mind. With a camera, one takes pictures to almost recreate the scene along with the imagination that one had, so that they can be viewed even after many years. The camera can definitely be called our third eye too!

I am not a professional photographer and all of the pictures here were shot with a point and shoot camera. With the perception and imagination at the moment of shooting, I would call these pictures as a few good pictures that I might have taken. This blog entry is a part of Travel Photos contest organized by Blog Adda. I am sure there are better pictures and posts accompanying the pictures, but as always I am happy to be a part of this contest.

This first picture was shot at the Great Horseshoe Bend in Page in Arizona (US), when I went on a road trip with a few friends in July 2009. This is a place where the mountain is shaped like a horseshoe magnet, and the river’s trail follows the path of a horseshoe as well. The water flow from above looks to be really smooth and serene, but upon close observation you definitely see the water currents and turbulences. I’d liken this to the human mind, which has a lot of activity going on within. But the person’s face at the first glance, doesn’t give a clue of the happenings in his mind (unless he is overtly expressive).

This second picture was shot at the Paddington Underground Railway Station in Great Britain in Dec 2008, when I was in London for a day during transit. The thing that captured my attention in this picture was the fact that this train station reminded me of the Indian train stations during monsoon, with the rain water around. The Britishers surely inspired a lot of things in India including the train system. Another generic observation in this picture is that the people are awaiting the next train with some concern over the time of arrival, and are all set for yet another working day.

This third picture was shot during the London transit as well, and I saw an advertisement hoarding on a bus, and it encouraged recycling. Though, all countries are now encouraging recycling, I have not seen many effective signs either in the US or in India that probably reaches out to the high school/college students in a casual way. Instead of having movie posters or consumer product advertisement hoarding on buses, we’d rather have a hoarding that’s dedicated towards a cause.

This fourth picture was shot at one of the natural wonders, Grand Canyon in Arizona (US). The Canyon itself is a great wonder, and an entire lifetime is not sufficient to visit the Canyon and explore all parts of the Canyon. This is one of the scenic points in the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, called the Angel’s Window.  A natural window like formation, that it is, stands out from the rest of the Canyon. This is formed over a millions of years due to the wind and probably water forces. The texture of the material that made up the formation is what captivates me the most, with the layers of limestone and other material withstanding all the heat and the cold, and sculpted into such a formation. How I wish, the human mind also took both positive and negative forces and made itself into an admirable entity.

The last one, probably being the most clichéd picture, is that of a sunrise as seen of the Bay of Bengal in Visakhapatnam, shot in December 2008. With the waves from the sea, hitting the rocks on the sea shore and the sun rising with it’s own grace forming a wonderful and colorful texture in the sky, a day cannot begin better than this. It is also an indication of the nature’s fact that, there is always a chance to begin everything afresh and proceed in the right direction, irrespective of the what happened prior to it.

I will soon be getting an SLR, and it will probably provide a new dimension to my creativity with my third eye!