“Fantasy is hardly an escape from reality. It's a way of
understanding it.” - Lloyd
Alexander
Mytho-fiction
authors are like Ellen Paige’s character, Ariadne, from Inception. They construct various dreamscapes
and elaborate mazes, out of ideas from the parent books. The beauty of the genre is that it's easily
relatable. It’s a steady diet we’ve been fed on since childhood. It’s practically
a deconstructed fine dining version of rajma-chawal and kheer of literature,
that reminds Indians of “home”. It’s a hyperuniverse, its characters and plot lines have no definite rules or laws governing them.
The perfect sandbox.
The perfect sandbox.
Tackling the genre
is similar to being under the Damocles’ sword. You have to strike the perfect
yin-yang. Get it right, and you have a
billion people (or at least the ones that read decent books) hanging on
desperately for more. Get it wrong, and the ire and backlash would be
crippling. They say familiarity breeds contempt, but this is one genre, where
familiarity opens avenues to explore, interpret and subtly twist things, to
open a whole new perspective. And
dare I say, this trilogy hit the sweet spot.
"The
Aryavarta Chronicles : Book 3 : Kurukshetra"
by Krishna
Udayasankar
They say, one
should never judge a book by its over. That’s not necessarily a bad rule to
follow. The artwork of Book 1 was what caught my eye. No reviews, no prior recommendations.
Pure chance and happenstance.
Kurukshetra , most definitely, carries that same
genetic code forward. The Aryavarta Chronicles, definitely have, the most
aesthetic covers in the business.
You need
quite a bit of grey cells to appreciate the nuances and subtlety this book offers
you. You also need a ton of patience, and like all good trilogies, you need to
have read the previous books. Unlike most books in this genre, this isn’t a
dumbed down, hippie retelling. This is proper sensible literature. You need to
make an effort to savour the book. You need to read, connect the dots, and
follow the breadcrumbs the author lays out for you. That, is exactly what makes
this book, worthy of a read. It doesn’t insult the reader’s sensibility. It
gives the brain a healthy workout.
The book only
borrows, and does not rely heavily on the set characters that have been
employed in the real epic, or its many retellings, There is a certain level
of freshness that has been maintained, thanks to this
"out-of-the-box" frame of the mind the author has put herself in. With
Book 3, I refuse to entertain people who peg Ms. Udayasankar as a debutant
author. She is way past that tag, and sits firmly in command of an F-22 raptor,
ready and poised to make its landing aboard a battle cruiser. She is
authoritative, teasing, incisive and focused.
Her story has the perfect dose of emotion and drama. Her action scenes
unleash great vengeance and furious anger. Her loose ends are tied. So, yes, I
peg her as a proper author. A proper, brilliant one.
This book
beats the sluggishness, one felt, initially with Kaurava. Well, that’s a flaw
with all trilogies. Kurukshetra blinds you with its pace. The storytelling is
paced just about right, for a rollercoaster. It gives you space to take a
breather, and get sucked into the next roller coaster of events that unfold.
This is where the author excels. She leads you into a rabbit hole, and drops you
bang into the middle of another, and deliberately lets go of you to get lost.
You have to climb and work your way out. And that is exactly what makes books
magical. You are made to believe that you are given a choice. But you really aren’t.
You are made to visualize what the author wants you to see. Her idea, is to
get you to empathise, love, hate, scream in frustration at its characters. Her
idea is to achieve a sense of relation. Something, in my humble opinion, other
than Amish, no other mytho-fiction author in the genre has achieved.
It is also
brilliant in breaking the stereotype of the character, the original myth
imposes on us. They are all grey. No definite blacks or whites. There is no
evil. There is only power. And its lust. You find yourself hating and liking
the characters, and you’re forced to put yourself in many shoes. You understand
that they are human. And to judge them would be wrong. The author puts across
the message of “understanding perspectives” very clearly. Something, that needs
to be applied by people in real life.
I don’t feel the
need to reveal the plot twists and turns, or the brilliance of how it unfolds ,
because that would be done so in most of the reviews you might read. So I shall
not delve into that and put out spoilers. You just have to pay up and read the
books.
Having said
that, I do feel that the book could have been edited to make it more crispy. The
sheer volume of characters and sub-plots could have been reduced. The philosophy
tends to cut down the pace just a tad bit. And, I genuinely believe, this would
have been a better outcome, if it was stretched into a Hexology, rather than
cram it into a trilogy. The details get a little too mind boggling, and a tad
conflicting. And as usual, this book is not suited to speed reading.
Perhaps not a
bad thing for us junk food junkies. This could be her way of re-introducing us
to getting our brains worked out J
THE VERDICT
Of all the mytho-fiction books I’ve read, I found the
Aryavarta Chronicles, perhaps, as the perfect combination of freshness and
savvy. Ms. Udayasankar wields ideas, landscapes, action and drama with maturity
beyond her years. Painstaking
efforts were put into the making of this trilogy. Like condensing an idea into
a tweet, it is a daunting task to edit, condense and then retell a beloved
mythological epic. The author must be applauded for her efforts. There is no
review to read here, it is just my way
of standing on my feet, and clapping for the Herculean effort this undertaking
must have been. For sheer grit, courage, and for bringing the sexy back to
mytho-fiction, cheers. This review might seem biased as well,
because, Ms. Udayasankar, over the course of time, has become a favourite acquaintance.
We, as fans, have driven you for more, and you have delivered.
The storm has
come, and we were blown away. And when it is all said and done, you now have my
permission to rest. Well done!
My review : ★★★★☆
