Skip to main content

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.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review of 'Magical Women'

I bought Magical Women by Hachette India on Kindle a few days back. It had been on my TBR for a long time. However, I hadn’t read up on what kind of a collection of stories the book would contain. People who like weird stories, horror, dystopia and sci-fi might enjoy this collection, which has been edited by Sukanya Venkatraghavan. It was published in 2019.   The editor’s note states, “Each story in this collection is unique in its representation of what it means to be magical.”   It may not be everyone’s cup of tea. The book is well written, but some of the themes are a bit disturbing. The first story “ Gul” by Shreya Ila Anasuya has themes of lesbianism. The second story “ Gandaberunda” by S.V. Sujatha is violent and macabre. When I read the third story, ‘Rulebook for Creating a Universe’ by Tashan Mehta, I felt that although I was reading English, I was seeing Greek and Latin. It went totally above my head.   I really enjoyed the fourth story ‘The Demon Hunter’s Dilemm...
Post a Comment
Read more

All the light we cannot see

This was the book of the month in one of the book clubs I belong to. Although slow in the beginning, it picked up pace after about 25% of the book was over. There was tension in the story, so as a reader I wanted to know what happened next although I could not connect to the characters very well. I found the minor character Frederick interesting and somewhat of a true leader. The part about the cursed gem 'The Sea of Flames' was interesting. The 'love story' between Verner and Marie Laure seemed very one-sided ( from his side only). The book highlights how war changes the lives of everyone caught in its grip and how powerless they are over their own fate
Post a Comment
Read more

Normal People

I must say I loved this book from the very beginning. I liked the sparse writing style and how the author minimizes the use of quoted speech. I cared about the characters and wanted to know what would happen to them. Marianne shows us how an intelligent girl can go down a strange path due to family problems, which by the way, remains a shadowy backstory. Only her troubled relationship with her brother and mom is outlined. The relationship she had with her dad is up for conjecture, but the reader understands it was rather abnormal.  Some readers might be put off by the kinky sex scenes in the book, but I looked upon it as a part of the story of a troubled character with self-esteem issues. It also highlights the lengths to which a person would go for love. Even as Marianne degrades herself in her own eyes, the reader doesn't judge her but only wants her to redeem herself and do better. Connor comes across as a decent human being after he finds himself. On the whole,...
Post a Comment
Read more