~~ Book Review: The Rise of Hastinapur ~~

Unlike with the first book (reviewed here) – I waited until I received the hard-copy of next book in the Hastinapur series by Sharath Komarraju.  Again, unlike the first book, the book cover of the 2nd book in the series was quite intriguing urging me to begin reading this almost as soon as I received it! (No, I don’t judge any book by its cover, but comparatively, this book cover was much much better than the first one)

With the earlier book being about the 2 wives of King Shantanu, this next book, The Rise of Hastinapur, focuses on the next generation of Queens associated with the kingdom.

First set of chapters is all about Amba, who is escorted to Hastinapur along with her 2 younger sisters by Bheeshma, in a fair win, but without her wish nor her consent, ironically in what is supposed to be her swayamvara (groom choosing ceremony)! She is in love with another king, Salva, who doesn’t make any attempt to stand up against Bheeshma when the latter provokes for a fair fight to win queens for his brothers! Blinded by the multiple eternal love proclamations professed by her lover in the past, she is inclined to take a few wrong decisions even when she is advised against it, which then decides the course of her entire life!! The hardships and shame she faces when she goes from one king to another seeking refuge, seething in anger, seeking revenge and in the end, getting nothing from anyone makes us almost cry for her plight! She later turns to a peaceful life, worshiping nature, yet for years, the fire of revenge is still there, somewhere deep inside, smoldering, waiting to erupt just like a volcano at the slightest provocation..! Her hatred towards Bheeshma is so strong, that you almost want to hate Bheeshma for her, but then you also want to knock some sense into her and help her understand that revenge is taking her nowhere!! She makes you so sad for her plight that you want to just hug her and point out that she could have just spoken her heart out to Bheeshma even before leaving her father’s palace instead of suffering and considering him to be the sole reason of all hardships she faced later! She makes you shudder with her strong revenge laced emotions that even you feel her anger, but still wonder at her immaturity when she is able to let  go of the injustice done by everyone else, even her lover, but just not Bheeshma… Ah, story of the scorned lover, but taking revenge on someone else altogether is brilliantly written! Personally, the chapters where she goes back to Salva with lots of hope just to face rejection is brilliant!!By the time, Amba’s chapters were coming to a close, I was deeply conflicted and drained of energy!

Second set of chapters are focused on Kunti and her futile attempts to save her brother Vasudeva from his brother in law Kamsa’s prison! I have always always thought of Kunti as a complex character with a lot of layers, probably with a few layers, unknown even to herself, a mysterious person with a lot of things going on in the background!! But I was in for a surprise in this book… She is portrayed as this most naïve & completely gullible character that I just kept feeling sorry for her weaknesses! I must say, that the chapters involving her, were, very easily, the least impressive chapters of this particular book! It got boring after some time... And I guess Sharath took a right decision (am not sure if it was intentional) by placing her chapter’s right in the middle of the book, because if it weren’t and if a reader knew her chapters led towards the end of book, a reader might just as well skip it!

The third and last set of chapters are dedicated to Gandhari and again, was I in for a surprise or what! I loved her fiery character and felt sad for her almost the same as I felt for Amba! How as a queen she was constantly defensive of her people, was placing the safety and well being of her kingdom above anything else in her life, her tactical decisions, her one and only worry about her kingdom prospering against odds and of course against Bheeshma has been brilliantly portrayed!  Her fear of leaving the kingdom under her brother Shakuni’s rule when she has to get married and then how she immediately thinks if she will ever get married is subtly put and indeed very hurting to read!  Easily the most positively powerful chapters of the whole book!

Throughout the book, Bheeshma‘s presence lingers mostly in the background, but, believe me, he is out there, making appearances now and then, working towards the rise of Hastinapur relentlessly, an efficient hard-worker with brilliant game plans, sometimes unaware that his actions for the rise of his empire, is leading to be the sole reason or one of the reasons for each of these queen’s lives turning upside down! 

Towards the end, you realize, how seamlessly Sharath has managed to pull this off, without tweaking the Epic in any which way, maintaining the basic essence of the ancient history that this Epic is, effectively trying to build entirely different vantage points to the Epic! In all, as I mentioned for the very first book in the series, it is definitely a very interesting read – a cannot-stop-reading kind of a book which makes you long for the next one in the series which might be out only next year – almost like how a kid in the month of June longs for the summer holidays of next year!!