Blown away

I finally finished reading Ashok Banker’s Ramayana series. There’s only one word to describe the books.

WOW.

What a story. What a rollicking adventure and what a storyteller!! Fantasy, adventure, mythology all rolled into one, a story to rival any story ever told.

Really. Full respect.

He made the Ramayana so interesting, so gripping that I was turning pages at every possible opportunity - in the metro, in the loo, shutting myself off from the kids, battling sleep for a few more minutes to finish this one chapter, one page....

Yes it’s an imaginative retelling of the great epic, so no space for the purists here. There’s a lot of creative license at play, but if this is the end result, bring it on, I say!

I won’t say any more. Just go read it, people. For folks who have read it, I’d like to know if you were as powerfully affected by it as I was.

I’m definitely looking forward to reading the Mahabharata series now. It gives me goose bumps to think what he can do with that story! I hope it does not disappoint!

Review of "India Grows at Night"

Every passing year, I find I am more interested in the Whys and the Hows, the historical context of why we are the way we are. Especially when it comes to India, I am all agog to understand, why this country and its people are, as so many people in Dilli keep saying, so ajeeb-o-gareeb!

So it was a given that I would read Gurcharan Das' latest India grows at Night - a Liberal case for a strong state. It is a rivetting read though I am assured it is not the author's best work. Das starts his argument by presenting several examples of India being a land of tremendous public failure and private success. This is fundamentally true though not all of his examples to prove this point are. For me, the case of Faridabad vs Gurgaon struck close home as a classic case of how Govt mismanagement and apathy contributed to the marginalization of one and private enterprise and infrastructure contributed to the glittering (if messy) success of another. However he also mentions the case of the IT industry in India which grew without Govt intervention which is patently incorrect - if the Govt had not established STPIs, given tax breaks etc the Indian IT industry may have stayed a mere fledgeling.

The basic premise of the book is that traditionally India has always had a weak state and a strong society (several warring kingdoms in ancient times, followed by independent princely states during the Raj that morphed into linguistic divisions post-1947). However the society was always well-organized and powerful. Compare this to China which has always had a tradition of strong central empires and a very weak and non-cohesive society. 

Das points out that India is the only country in the world that embraced democracy before it embraced capitalism. Every other country has done the reverse. Therefore (this I found utterly fascinating) Indians learnt about their rights much before they learnt about their duties! If we take this argument as plausible, then it explains so much about why we are the way we are...why we keep our homes spotless and our streets filthy, why we vehemently protest against a gangrape yet will not step up to take an accident victim to the nearest hospital...

Das blames weak governments for India's massive public failures - I agree. He thinks we need to move away from a tradition of weak states to a strong central state (not dictatorial) - I agree, but is this even possible? He finally links the two and proposes a new political class, largely drawn from the middle-class and a party modelled on Rajaji's Swatantra Party.  His arguments are compelling except for one fatal flaw  - his vote of confidence in the middle class to step up to do something for this country. I personally do not share his confidence but wish I am proved wrong! 

Ashok Banker's Ramayana

My first introduction to the Ramayana was through Amar Chitra Katha. I presume it was ACK that brought the epic to life for most children in the 80s. Additionally, in my case, we lived in faraway North India so opportunities for hearing the story from any of my grandparents were few and far between. around  Around the time I was 10-11 years old, I picked up Rajaji's rendition of the epic and was utterly charmed by his flowery prose and narrative style. Through my school years, I read his version too many times to remember while being rather more captivated by the complex plots and infinitely more interesting characters of  the Mahabharata.

Inevitably, as I grew older and especially after watching the cloying Ramanand Sagar series on TV, I began to find the story mildly irritating and even boring, populated by bloodless characters with no life and personality, and the image of the Ideal Man and Woman patronizing and unrealistic. While I knew other versions existed, until recently I didn't have the interest to dig them up and read them. Until someone recommended Ashok Banker's Ramayana.

I ordered the first book through my library and once I started reading, it was impossible to put down!! I fretted and fumed as I realised that the second book was not available from the library. Fortunately, a friend had just finished reading the whole series and he lent me his collection. Since then, I have been furiously reading the books at every opportunity (have just started on Book 4) - in the metro, snatched moments at home and a full hour battling sleep after the kids are in bed.

What a story it is! For the first time, I am reading the Ramayana not just as the story of an avatar of Vishnu dwelling in the mortal world in order to eradicate evil; but as a rollicking adventure, a vastly entertaining tale of good vs evil, a dashing hero, a brave independent-minded heroine, a chilling villain, all meshed together in a book that's as good as the best in its genre.

I'm wondering why I never read it when it first came out a few years ago...I had so much more time! Rama and Sita are a flesh-and-blood couple with real fears, doubts, emotions and yes, a lot of love too. Banker has taken liberties with the plot. For example, Manthara is actually a minion in Ravana's service and Rama's exile is part of a larger strategy by the Asura king to gain power over the Aryan kingdoms. The first time Ravana encounters Rama is actually at Sita's swayamvara where Ravana is also a suitor; in fact he lifts and strings the bow of Siva first! Rama uses the Brahm-astra against Ravana's invading Asura hordes at Mithila and destroys most of the Asura army, leaving Ravana imprisoned within a block of stone for 13 years....Such interesting and fresh twists to an otherwise old and well-known story make the books unputdownable!
In addition, what I really liked was that Sita is not some kind of wilting wallflower. She is a warrior princess who stands shoulder to shoulder with her husband and brother-in-law, fighting the Rakshshas during their long torturous years in exile. Banker is good with action sequences in particular and manages to make the scenes come alive on paper.
I won't add any more spoilers here for people who haven't read the series. Í'm sure I'll have one more post in store once I am done with Books 5 through 7. Looking forward to yet more hours of reading pleasure!

Reading update

Lots of books have been read and digested! So, pretty good going for the last couple of months.

What have I read?

1. Schindler's List - Did not enjoy it. It was so-so, not nearly gripping enough. It was somewhat moving in parts, but I struggled to finish it.

2. Revolution 2020 by Chetan Bhagat - Enough said. Why did I even bother?

3. Several books by Jod Picoult - I started them all, gave them all up a quarter of the way through. Not my kind of storytelling. I don't care for very emotional books with characters on the cusp of major drama/life changing events or decision points. Too much hand-wringing, emotional upheavel and mental agonising is not something I like in my books! That's just me :)
4. The Immigrant by Manju Kapoor - I liked it. I've read her Difficult daughters before and enjoyed that as well.

5. The Help - Have been trying to lay my hands on this for a long time. Engaging and well-written. No sociological treatise, this one...don't expect any major revelations or insights. But a page-turner nonetheless.

6. The Shadow Princess - My fascination with Indu Sundaresan and Mughal India continues!! No disapoointments in this one, I was hooked from Page 1 right until the end as the story of ShahJahan and his daughter Jahanara unfolded.

7. Several books by Sophie Kinsella - A few pages into Confessions of a Shopoholic and I was thinking - what had I been thinking while ordering these books! I know I chortled my way through Bridget Jones but that when I was 20! The Shoopoholic series were a disaster but another book called The Undomestic Goddess was ok for my 9.30 pm reading when I just need words swimming before my eyes before I go off to la-la land :)

Any recos, people?