After reading the first three books of Ram Chandra Series (am a little weary of reading the last one in the series) I really ddin’t want to read anymore of Amish’s books. His portrayal of Ravana as some psycho killer really leaves a very bad taste. I grew up listening to my grandmom and aunt singing praises of Ravan for his valor, intelligence, etc. Abduction of Sita was seen as a minor flaw in his character rather than a serious offense. While today with our maturity and awareness it seems unforgivable that a man would forcibly abduct a woman and keep her imprisoned, at that time all I could see was the sappy Arun Govil (as Ram) vs the regal and fearsome Arvind Trivedi (as Ravan) in Ramanand Sagar’s Ramayan. My admiration for Ravan was reiterated with Vikram’s portrayal of Beera in Mani Ratnam’s Ravanan.
Anyways, coming back to the Shiva Trilogy…………….
The first time I read the books it was so exciting and thrilling! While we come across analogies and reproduction of many western mythological stories, we have rarely come across an Indian counterpart except what we see in Amar Chitra Katha or the serious ones written purely based on the classics. So Shiva Trilogy filled a gap that I didn’t even realize existed. What made the book even more dear to heart is your favorite god being the protagonist in the story. While I do know Amish takes a lot of creative liberties in his portrayal of Shiva it was hard to not fall for the charming, romantic and handsome fictional Shiva in the book.
So I thought it would only be a bit tedious to read the book all over again, otherwise it should be an ok read. Unfortunately, I was left with feeling extremely irritated with Amish’s style of writing. It is not just the poor choice of words, grammatical errors, poor proofreading,….
For instance, no one ever just laughs in this book. They almost always ‘burst out laughing’. Irrespective of the situation, the surrounding, mood of the scene, they burst out laughing. Is it so hard to find an alternative way to describe laughter?
If I hadn’t known better I would have thought the book is actually the script of a Sanjay Leela Bhansali book. Time and time again Amish insists on listing every single person who accompanies Shiva wherever he goes….whether he is in a Vishnu temple, or on a ship, or paying respects to a King. Every single time there is a list of people who have accompanied Shiva. By the way, the list almost never changes. So why get into this level of detail every single time?! It is almost as if Amish had a checklist of things to say at every scene and he was just making sure it is covered. But what was the proofreader doing?!
And coming to how a scene is described….you know how in SLB movies and TV Soaps one person says something and then the camera pans to every single person to show their expression? That is how most of the scenes feel in this book. Just like in those movies/soaps this level of detail doesn’t serve any purpose.
Many a time the dialogues are so petty and unrefined. Especially the ones by Kali. They seem unnecessarily insulting to the other person and overly self-appraising.
The first two times I read the book, I found Amish’s way to interspersing characters and stories from our mythology into this story very clever and also gave us an interesting perspective. But after reading the Ram Chandra series, I am not so sure anymore. Especially the way Jamadagni story turned into one of Honor Killing doesn’t seem right. Honor Killing is too serious a topic to be used here.
Of course, all this doesn’t take away the significance of this book and what it means to many of us. This is the first of its kind (at least to my knowledge?!) and gives the reader quite a thrilling and exciting ride. The book moves from adventure to adventure keeping the reader hooked and often wondering how did we get here? Like I said, this is my third read and I still wonder how did a certain situation come about?!
The philosophical discussions between Shiva and Vasudevs is quite interesting too, and is often thought provoking. Maybe because I usually don’t read spiritual or philosophical books, I found Amish’s take on Good vs Evil quite interesting. I also love how he made Mohini into the supreme goddess and the companion of Rudra. This puts a spin on how we view Rudra (as a representation of shiva in the form of chants and rudraksh seed) and Mohini (as Vishnu in the form of a beautiful woman). Considering how we revere Shiva and Vishnu as the two supreme deities, Amish’s take on Rudra and Mohini makes so much sense and fits right in place!
So now am off to get started with the 3rd and last instalment of this series. I only vaguely remember a little bit of what happens in this book, so am sure the suspense will still hold good 😊 Also since I have voiced most of what I find annoying, I should be able to ignore these flaws unless I find something new to complain about!
