Land of the Seven Rivers

Author : Sanjeev Sanyal

Review:

Finally finished the book "Land of the Seven Rivers" By Sanjeev Sanyal. The book cover gives a depiction of ancient
India, but it's much more than that. The author starts India's journey from the Harappan period to the current century.
Two things truely commendable about the author - he is travelled ardently across the country to collect the miniscule details and secondly,he has collected lot of documentation on what the travellers from other lands,who have either visited,stayed or interacted with Indians at different points of time had to say about our country.So we get an entirely different perspective on where India stood and what India did from ages galore.

Till the 11th century , there are more speculations based on the material which was collected. He keeps reminding time and again that ancient Indians did map India from the Himalayas to the Ocean in the south .The golden era of Maurya and Gupta empires, the pinnacle of India's civilization growth is well detailed out.

There are some unique points in this book I loved the most-
1. Tracing the importance of Lion in our country's culture and geography , right from the vedic ages.From a near no mention in the RigVedas to a liberal usage in the epics, then through the statistics of lion hunts by royalties over a period of time to the number of Lions in Gir right now. Its like a Lion graph.

2.The second, he traces the fate of Delhi-from Harappan settlement to Indraprasth to Turks Delhi, Mughal Delhi, Imperial Delhi , Refugee Delhi , old Delhi and then new Delhi.
You really end up feeling sorry for this city.

3. The third, he describes in detail the effort taken to draw the contour map of India and Tibet.How and when did India find it's place in the World Atlas.

4. The fourth- why Indians failed as a country till 18th century despite having everything in different pockets- The Centre
were always strong in defence,thanx to their geographical terrain and guerilla tactics. More especially after the Marathas emerged solid in warfare, highly instrumental in toppling the Mughal rule .Why did they not take over India ?? Why did south stop trade after the glorious Chola era, the only empire which extended even beyond India? Why did North never think of building their defences, even after their central base (Delhi) was being plundered again and again after so many invasions? And the big question -Why did India shut itself from the innovations of the west and start looking inwards despite the fact that Ancient Indians were more forthcoming and there was a diaspora in ancient ages?

The book is a very slow read, lot of information to digest each and every page, and the details get thicker after the Indian
independence. But it is one of the very unique books I have come across, any day I'd go back to refer on data and facts.
If u r interested in learning about our country, please dont miss this book.

Recommended : 👍👍👍

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Magnus Chase and theThe Sword of Summer

Author : Rick Riordan

Review:

Books are a port key to a different world under any situation.As I had time to kill - finished Magnus Chase - the sword of Summer by Rick Riordan. After the dragging Olympus saga, the author is back with this book- it's a breezy, refreshing read based on Norse Gods. A couple of things I did not like though. Thor and Loki ARE Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston. He shud not have messed with their protrayal. It hurts 😊 and when we give unique names to Dwarven furniture we don't borrow the names of the Dwarves liberally from The Hobbit !!! Else book is a v breezy read. Rick Riordan is back !!!

Recommended : 👍

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Movie:Tamasha

Plot Review:

Our family did great justice to Tamasha, as we did a Tamasha ourselves. Went into the theatre, movie has started. Ranbir kapoor was grim, serious, psychotic. Ok!!!!So we said wait for flashback for Matargashti. His daddy says am proud of u son. Err..where is Corsica. Then comes Tokyo- Accha he is proposing ...Ummm...something is seriously wrong. ...Then the END.cast credits!!! So it happens we entered the wrong screen where the movie was playing well into the second half!!! Thanx to the staff, they laughed off the whole joke with us and let us watch the next show again for free. So we watched the movie upside down. Review of the second time full movie of Tamasha - awesome , brilliant. Ranbir kapoor esp- too good !!

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Movie :Spectre

Plot Review:

This Bond was truely sanskari!! First time saw a Bond movie so decent , but unfair considering the amount of leeway being given to the Hindi movies of late !!Spectre review in general - nothing new , Daniel Craig is good but rest all - cud have been better !!

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Jai Shri Ram

Chalo dohraaye woh katha purani,
Ramchandra ki woh amar kahani,

Chale vanvaas Ram aur Sita,
Lakhan sang chale apne bhrata,
Vaanar bhi the, maanav bhi the,
Lankapati ke daanav bhi the

Lankeshwar vidhwaan aur gyaani,
kyon usne kisee ki bhi na maani,
jaane kyun sudhbudh woh gavaaya,
Siya ko van se utaa ke laaya.
Bandhi thi woh Ashok van mein,
Ram naam japti rahi man mein.

Hanuman pahunche, ro padi Sita,
Aa rahe Ram,dheeraj rakho maata
Vaanar ke sang Dashrath Nandan,
Padhare lanka, sanhaare Dashaanan

Siya ki pareeksha, Ram ki shankha,
Ravan ki bhool, jalee re Lanka.
Satya ki jeet,Dusht sanhaar,
Ramayan ki yahi hai saar.

Sunlo bacchon meri zubaani,
Adbhuth hai yeh Ram kahaani!!!

BBC Miniseries : North and South

Plot Review :

BBC Miniseries and Book review : North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell. I stumbled upon the BBC miniseries starring Richard Armitage and liked it very much , and then went on to read the book. If Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice is a social drama, this one's more socio-political drama.Set mainly in the smoky manufacturing town of Milton, it revolves around the struggle between the mill-owners and the labourors. With this on the background, a powerful love story between an impeccable lady from the picturisque south ,who comes to Milton and an idealistic mill-owner despite their differences in convictions,takes the center-stage. And being an ardent fan of Jane Austen, am comparing this book and the characters with Pride and Prejudice, and it does stand on par.As somewhere I read, characters like Darcy and Thornton ,raise the general levels of intelligence and convictions in men. The book is so beautifully written ,albiet a bit long, and starts slowly, you would not want to miss a single word, and go back to read and re-read each and every sentence u did not understand.If you like Pride and Prejudice, watch the mini-series first. If you like that, go for this book. It's blissful reading. And this one will go down in my list of top 10.

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The Scion of Ikshwaku

Author : Amish Tripathi

Review:

Book Review : The Scion of Ikshwaku : Amish Tripathi spins off another tale with the same ingredients - a different recipe. I liked that he reused a lot of his concepts which he had introduced in the Meluha series. The Somras, the Nagas, the Vayuputras, the Malayaputras all are back. The narrating style is the same. The plot is too "Un-Ramayanish", though Ram remains Ram (thankfully), the dignified prince who sticks to the law. There were quite a few things I did not like though. There was no reason to introduce heinous crimes and make Ram keep quiet over them. No reason to make Sita swayamvar- Draupadi Swayamvar. Sita by herself was a strong character, not sure why he had to tweak the tales and situations around her. And did Dwaraka and Sangam Tamil exist before Ram times, I thought it was after. Otherwise, it is a typical Amish Tripathi book. If you liked the Shiva series, you will find this pretty much on similar lines.

Recommended: 👍

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Govinda, The Aryavrata Chronicles

Author: Krishna Udayasankar

Review:
Very rare are the occasions when u pick up the book from the store out of curiosity, without any background or publicity and the book manages to surpass all your expectations. The book is simply mind boggling. Based on the characters on Mahabharata, the book has nothing else in common with the epic. The characters are twisted, plundered to the core - but well keeping in mind what the other authors are doing, u can overlook it. The plot is intense, ruthless, stunning imagination and very very powerful storytelling. I raved about Asura, but this one just bowled me out. Glad that Indian authors are coming out so well. But at the same time,am surprised that this is one of the lesser publicised books.Cant wait to finish Books-2 and 3. Krishna Udayasankar- take a bow.!!!

Recommended: 👍

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Mytho-history

There are lot of books which are being written these days which they call as "mytho-history". Many authors are coming forward to recite history as they percieve it. Lot of modern authors put their thoughts into it, where they are trying to find bad in good, good in bad- all shades of gray. But may be one thing we fail to notice is people whom we are talking in B.C.s cannot be like us,could not have thought like us. They had a complete different set of value systems- the vedas and the upanishads imparted knowledge and dictated life. The life was ruled by doctrines and principles, not by free thinking. May be Krishna is the only one who started the whole process of free thinking. So may be we should give a benefit of doubt to the good sides of both the epics, Ramayana and Mahabharata and accept their virtues rather than glorifying the goodness factors of the villians,because it appealed to the values of those times. At least times when there were values and people believed in them. A just king(s) cannot be condemned to whole life with a single mistake !!

The Magician's guild : Black Magician Trilogy

Author : Trudi Caravan

Review:

Finished Trudi Caravan's first book of Black Magician Trilogy - The Magician's guild. Had never heard about the author before, the librarian suggested to me. The plot is quite good, but it's a slow read though light. None of the characters really stand out. I always like humour more, this one's got less of it. At the end of the day, you want to flip through 80-100 pages and go to sleep- you can go for it. For the plot alone- thumbs up !!!

Recommended : 👍

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