Monday, 17 July 2017

Sita - Warrior of Mithila

Author : Amish Tripathi

Review:
The second book in the RamChandra Series. Amish Tripathi has an ability to glue the reader to the book from the start to the end. As the title suggests, the book is about Sita, a journey of her life till she gets kidnapped by Ravana. Not for the first time I wonder why this author chose an alternate line of mythology as his central theme than having his own fantasy genre. With his opulent imaginations, his strong notions ,and his detailed if not impeccable portrayal of his characters, he could have delivered an excellent piece of fiction and created new heroes. But coming back to the story in hand, I really like his deliberations on the Vedic way of life, and the derivations of the caste system - why it was needed and where it faltered. Each of his protagonists have a different perspective, one doesn't circumvent the law, one believes in absolute freedom of thought, and one seems to question everything around.And I absolutely love his re-usable "concepts" - which he so skillfully built from his shiva trilogy - The Nagas, the Vayuputras, the Malayaputras, the Somras- With every book of his, his knots become much tighter. There is so much special about this author, his attention to detail and the ability to tie the loose ends. But there are certain qualms which I do have with this book. The very first is that Ram seems to be a pawn, with everyone deciding his next course of action. Few want him to be the Vishnu, few do not, few want to partner with him. Everyone including Sita seems to be playing around with his destiny and make his decisions for him , except only once when he decides is to exile himself. The second is the book fails to depict sufficient qualities for Sita being considered as the "Vishnu". She has neither fought any battles nor displayed significant leadership qualities. The secret of her birth is yet to be revealed. Also, the Vedic society neither did give such a free hand nor the resources to a woman to chalk out her own destiny, as the book suggests . The reference to Jallikattu also seemed a little too far fetched. And I was wondering on the historic era during which his story is based upon, because the time when Saraswati was flowing in India, we did not have rope bridges with metal planks . To summarize, it's a thumbs up, it will always be a thumbs up to Amish Tripathi, one of the most gifted writers. He has a long line queued up in RamChandra series- hopefully his protogonists will evolve as the series progresses. But as of this book, I found it more wanting in the area of character development, especially when he is chosen to depict the Iconic Gods and Goddesses of Indian mythology .

Recommended : 👍


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