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

My Book Review of 'Bitch Goddess for Dummies'

Recently, I attended a zoom session on chick lit by the Chennai Lockdown Literary Festival (CLLF). In the session, one of the speakers was Maya Sharma Sriram. I was so impressed with the way she conducted the session and answered the questions that I decided to pick up her chick lit novel, ‘Bitch Goddess for Dummies’ brought out by Rupa Publications in 2012. And I was not disappointed. I’m not sure if I was biased toward the book by the personality I had seen on zoom or not, but I quite enjoy chick lit and have read several chick lit novels in my thirties.   So the novel is about a 27-year-old woman Mira Iyer who decides to transform her personality from good girl to ‘bitch goddess’ to deal with the people in her life. Her mom who is constantly trying to fix her up with some eligible guy so that she can get married and Sanya, the real office bitch who is always cosying up to their bosses and vying for a promotion, are just two of the people in her life causing her angst. So it’s goodby
3 comments
Read more

A Different Approach to Fairy Tales

CARTHICK'S UNFAIRY TALES BY Carthick Blurb A damsel in distress. An evil dragon. A concerned father seeking a savior to rescue his daughter. A hero galloping off to the rescue – a knight in shining armor. Now THAT is stuff of fairy tales. But what if the father’s real concern is for the dragon’s hoard; What if the damsel’s reason of distress is the marriage proposal by her pompous and vicious savior; and what if the story is told by the horse who bears not only the overweight knight but also his heavy, shining armor all the way to the dragon’s lair and back, facing certain death in the process? What if there was more – much more – to all your favourite fairy tales than met the eye? This book chronicles not one but seven such unfairy tales – tales told by undead horsemen and living cities. Tales of mistreated hobgoblins and misunderstood magicians. Tales of disagreeable frogs and distressed rats and bears baring their souls. Once you read these
2 comments
Read more

Blogging with a Purpose - Theme Post

I’ve loved books since I was a child. I vaguely recall the 'Ladybird' series of books that I read as a child, but the first novel I remember reading was ‘The Mystery of the Burnt Cottage’ by Enid Blyton that my mom brought home for me to read from the library when I was in Class 4. I then finished the children’s books section in library after library in my neighbourhood. Reading has served me well since I now work as an editor. Reading was what filled my hours as a child and kept loneliness at bay. Reading is what helped me find myself at age 40 when I got back to the habit after several years of reading sporadically. I now average about 25 books a year that I track on Goodreads .  I’ve had the opportunity to interact with quite a few authors online and offline. My cause for the Blogchatter #BloggingWithAPurpose campaign is "promoting authors." There is a popular joke in the publishing industry these days that there are more authors than readers. Authors a
2 comments
Read more