Book Review : Shiva Trilogy (Amish Tripathi)

Recently I have finished reading ‘Shiva Trilogy’ by Amish Tripathi and I must say it is an awesome debut attempt by the author. To my utter surprise, I finished reading all the three books – “The Immortals Of Meluha’, ‘The Secret Of The Nagas’ and ‘The Oath Of The Vayuputras’ back-to-back. Though it took almost 3 months for me to read all the three books, the trilogy was successful in keeping me engrossed in it for this long duration. The entire series is about the journey of a simple man from ‘Tibet’, who through his morals, intellect and warrior-like skills earns the title of ‘Neelkanth’ and how he fights to save India from the evil. What the evil of the century is another mystery in itself.

The Immortals of Meluha – This book starts with the introduction of a ‘Tibetian’ man ‘Shiva’ living near the banks of ‘Mansarovar’. He soon finds himself along with his tribe in the city of ‘Meluha’, where reside the ‘Suryavanshis’ who strictly follow the rules laid out by ‘Lord Ram’. Shiva discovers that almost every ‘Meluhan’ is immortal, thanks to the greatest invention of the century - ‘Somras’. During medical treatment, the ‘Somras’ which is fed by the ‘Meluhan’ doctors in disguise to Shiva ends up giving a blue throat to him. As per the Suryavanshi legend, the Meluhans accept him as their ‘Neelkanth’ – the living god who will lead the suryavanshis to victory against their rivals – ‘Chandravanshis’, who are the descendents of Lord Ram too, but have different lifestyles and  traditions and are seeking help from ‘Nagas’ who are considered as terrorists. Shiva is soon on a voyage to destroy the evil-considered ‘Chandravanshis’ in ‘Ayodha’, only to realise later that they are not different than ‘Suryavanshis’. During this journey, he meets ‘Sati’ with whom he falls in love with and gets married who later gives birth to their child ‘Kartik’.

The Secret of the Nagas – The realisation that ‘Chandravavnshis’ are not evil but something else leads Shiva to ‘Panchavati’, where the ‘Nagas’ reside, who are actually humans, but are born with some deformities;  a pair of extra hands and nose like elephant. The Nagas are the babies born to ‘Meluhans’ but are abandoned as they are born with deformities. He discovers the relation of his with Sati with the Lord of the people - Ganesh and Queen of Nagas - Kali, which even Sati was unaware of. Soon Shiva realises that unlike described by Suryavanshis and Chandravanshis, the Nagas are kind-hearted. This leads him to rethink on his views of Good and Evil and he soon learns that Good and Evil are two sides of the same coin. The Good needs to be destroyed when the Evil completely takes over the good. But when does Good become Evil?  Shiva moves ahead further in his quest to discover the ultimate evil of the times.

The Oath Of the Vayuputras – Shiva, along with his followers meet the secretive tribe left behind by Lord Ram. The Vasudevs help him in deciding what is evil. Once Shiva becomes sure of the evil, he decides to destroy it, but a conspiracy is underway. He goes to the distant land of Pariha – the land of Vayuputras, a secretive tribe left behind by Lord Rudra, who are sworn to help Neelkanth in any case. In Pariha, he comes to know how his throat turned blue and earned the title of ‘Neelkanth’. Was he the one chosen by Gods as the saviour of mankind or was it his destiny? How will Vayuputras help him in destroying the evil? How will Sati, Kartik, Ganesh, Kali, Bhadra, Kritika, Nandi and the army survive when Shiva is in Pariha, far away from them? At the end, will all the struggle and sacrifice made by Shiva to destroy the evil be worth it?

I cannot answer above all questions here as this curiosity is what makes this trilogy work. It is a great work done by Amish and I must say all the research he has put into writing this novel is worth it. Even after finishing this book, you won’t be able to keep all the characters out of your mind for days. I would recommend it a must read for everyone, especially those who are interested in Indian mythology. 

A Friend In Need Is A Friend Indeed...!!!

Sometimes, I think how often do we catch up with our friends, without whom, once our lives seemed to be completely meaningless? How strange it is, that a friend who is a true partner in our joys and sorrows, whose absence makes our day quite gloomy and dull, suddenly becomes so close yet so far that you need to really struggle hard to even shake hand and say “hello’ to each other.

Since past few days, I am missing my best friend ‘Kirti’ (http://kirti-momentstoremember.blogspot.in/). It is not that we both are not in touch with each other. It’s just that I muse on how life has taken turns in both of our lives that we don’t get to even see each other for months, in spite of being in the same city. Our friendship was started when we both were colleagues, and destiny somehow had decided to bring us close to each other in manners we could not have even imagined of. I remember the times when both of us struggled hard to learn our technology and survive in our first organization at the time of recession. The painful days when we would travel to the other end of the city and reach office in the early hours of morning, work for the whole day together solving so-called critical and high-priority issues and waited for the day to end up desperately so that we can go back to our homes. However, those were the best days of our lives as we laughed and cried together, supported and criticised, promised to be together always, however gave space to each other and enjoyed each and every moment to its fullest. There was a time when we were so busy with our lives that we did not even talk to each other, but the essence of friendship did not vanish, even after Kirti changed her job, left Pune, shifted to Hyderabad and thereafter Dubai. I had never thought that we would meet someday again and relive those old days, after all that is what usually happens when someone dear goes far from you. But I was wrong. She came back to Pune and much to my surprise; we were again working together, in a new organization. But, false to our expectations, those good old days were somewhere lost in time. We both had our share of good and bad experiences in life and we had started to take life more seriously and maturely than ever before. 

The best part is, even today when our lives have changed completely, we both find ourselves besides each other whenever needed. The sad part is that we didn’t even realize when the term ‘need’ came in between our ever-lasting friendship. There was a time when we would meet without any plans, reasons or occasions. But, today we even find hard to see each other when we desperately want to. Yes, we always have an option of calling each other on phone, but sometimes I feel the need of that kind of conversation where I can sit beside my friend and speak nothing, but come back home feeling calm and relaxed. With our growing responsibilities and unexpected circumstances, that seems to be quite a distant wish these days. Thankfully, we at least stand besides each other when we are in need. After all, a friend in need is a friend indeed.