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Of Myths, Legends and Religion

I think it was just a matter of time that I got hooked on to mythology. It was inevitable. I say this because a childhood friend, SVS, was asking me which version of the Ramayana and Mahabharata her teen daughter would enjoy. I'd suggested Ashok Banker's but then another friend interjected saying it might be too racy for her. The first seed was planted in my subconscious.

And then one of the reputed neurologists I visited for my frozen shoulder/cervical radiculosis/whatever-the-heck-still undiagnosed-disease-it-is, spent a good 40 minutes of his precious time discussing spiritual questions with me. Don't ask me why. I'm as stumped as you are. So again the leaning toward knowing more about Gods and Goddesses.

My extended family meet consisted of discussions of spirituality by all the elders. My lack of knowledge of such matters is rather shocking.

And then the online book group that I'm a part of - Senior Reading Raccoons - had suggested, among many books, Lanka's Princess by Kavita Kane. I found it on Kindle Unlimited and started reading it. I couldn't put it down. It is, in a nutshell, Ramayana from the point of view of Surpanakha.

I found it very interesting because in the olden days(boy, that makes me sound a 100) they used to vilify the asuras and deify the devas. But in this book, the author Kavita Kane gives an asura's point of view. I guess this has been done before in the book Asura: Tale of the Vanquished - The story of Ravana and his people, which I bought from the juggernaut app and is still on my TBR pile. But the point is, the Kavita Kane book was the first such book I'd read. And I couldn't put it down.

My dad, of course, was deeply worried. He thought I'd moved over to the dark side and started worshipping the asuras. LOL. I had to tell him that the book conveys the story very well and anything that makes me want to read our epics and learn more about our mythology has to be a good thing.

He still wasn't convinced. I just mildly ignored him and started reading Devdutt Pattanaik's 'The seven secrets of Shiva', which was fascinating. Dad was thrilled because he has been named after Lord Shiva. I told him how biased he was!

My next book was 'The seven secrets of the Goddesses', which threw light on how female goddesses have been worshipped over the centuries in different cultures and how people's view of female goddesses has changed over time. This was also extremely informative.

I'm currently reading 'Karna's wife' by Kavita Kane on Kindle Unlimited, which is about Urvi, who I'd never heard about earlier through any source and although I'm just a few chapters in, I find it very engaging.
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