~~ Book Review: The Winds of Hastinapur ~~

I guess I will be ever grateful to the book reading challenge that I had taken up last year!  I had expected that the challenge will finally help me, build some interest in the non-fiction genre, which sadly didn’t happen, but of many things, it got me addicted to the mythological genre like never before!

 

Mahabharata, the greatest and the longest epic in the world which has been translated and probably re-told many number of times had always been my personal favorite – I had read R.K. Narayan’s “The Mahabharata” and “The Ramayana” long back and I can vouch that those are the best to start with, that is, if you have never read these epics till now!!

 

This book reading challenge thus introduced me to a book which painted this great Epic in Bhīma’s POV, subsequently leading me into an unquenchable quest of reading this epic through different point of views!  I have almost all of the POV’s stacked in my bookshelf at home by now (or so I want to think)!

 

So, when one fine-otherwise-boring Friday, a fellow blogger asked if I would like to be an early reader of Sharath Kommaraju’s upcoming 2^nd book of the Mahabharata series – I couldn’t believe it! Needless to say, I gladly accepted!  

 

I began by reading the 1^st book in the series and so this is the review of the same – The Winds of Hastinapur!

 

This book, to be precise, is about the 2 wives of King Shantanu, who, of course, is the king of Hastinapur! As most of you might already know, Ganga is his first wife and Satyavati, his second!  Most of the renderings of the epic does portray Ganga as the queen bearing & letting go of her 7 sons, before she gives birth to Bheeshma (Devavratha) and then leaves, but then that is all or may be some more!  This book, however, dedicates almost half of its chapters to showcase Ganga’s life as never before! It makes you wonder, how a theft of a holy cow somewhere someplace and a resulting curse from a sage’s wife, results in a major upheaval in Ganga’s life, who is blissfully unaware about any part of it! She, Ganga, the future lady of the River, is chosen to liberate the 8 Elements(Vasus) from the curse, entrusted the responsibility of bearing 8 sons (Vasus), of whom she has to give up 7, and leave her 8^th one to suffer, where in reality, all she craves for is to grow up as soon as possible, be with her mother, the present lady of the river, take over in future someday, and then bear a girl child who would grow up to be the next lady of the river to carry the legacy forward!

 

I immensely liked the portrayal of Ganga as a woman at the core, wondering about her destiny on why she was chosen of all to be a part of this, when she was nowhere involved in the theft, even remotely! The turmoil’s of Ganga as a confused & angry mother, who has to overcome her maternal instincts to prioritize her duty of relieving the curse for the Vasus is worth reading! Apart from these, what intrigued me mostly was the different yet refreshing concept of the balance of life and nature, which is described in an unusual way, indicating that a loss is always accompanied with gain, but, may be just somewhere and someplace else!  As I was reading through these phrases or sections, it somehow gave an “Avatar” movie effect, with strange possibilities to be comprehended!  I must say, Sharath did a great job here with his imagination & yet managed not to change the underlying actual epic that Mahabharata is!

 

The other half of the book, is focused on Kali (Satyavati), who is an ordinary fisherman’s daughter, rebuked for her awkwardly manners with an everlasting fish-odor that lingers on her & how she, emerges out of this awkwardness and grows up to be a maiden, pursued by all and ends up being the queen of Hastinapur!  I particularly liked the part where she feels bad for depriving Bheeshma of something, in her quest of the greater good for her tribe, but then immediately recovers and pursues her aim! I also liked the way in which she broods later, that maybe, things would have been different, if she had actually married Bheeshma instead of Shantanu!  Though the first half was more magical and imaginations galore, the second half was very down to earth!  As I kept reading Satyavati’s tumults of able to bear 2 sons for the kingdom, yet, being dependent on Bheeshma to even win brides for them, her anguish at not feeling anything for her son’s deaths, her search for her long lost son who she had to let go of in the past, as she hadn’t a marital status yet – Oh, I just didn’t want the book to end, but end it did, abruptly, angering me for a while as I was expecting it to continue forever!

 

So, in all, a very interesting read – provided you are not the kind who would want to read the sequel immediately :)

 

Is it too late to reveal that this also was my first successful attempt at reading an online version of a book! To be frank, other than the experience I missed of holding the book in my hands while reading it, I had no other complaints! Once I have the actual book in my hands – I am definitely reading this one again! :)