Sunday, March 04, 2012

Book Reviews [38/39] : Immortals of Meluha and The Secret of the Nagas

Amish Tripathi has done a wonderful service to Indian culture and religion, and in particular to Uncle Pai who regenerated the interests of Indians through his Amar Chitra Katha. The Immortals of Meluha and The Secrets of the Nagas are like a fresh breeze in the sweltering land of modern times. 

'The Immortals of Meluha' starts with the 'Discovery' of Shiva in the region around the Mansarovar Lake and ends with the victory of Suryavanshi Meluhans over Chandravanshi Ayodhyans. Meluhan civilization was nothing but great Indus Valley Civilization and Chandravanshis were "degenerated Aryans". The awareness of Amish with old and odd places and legends, and creation of the characters of Nandi and Bhadra is legendary. Although its a fiction but sometimes it seems pretty real. The character of Sati and the gory details of the practice of Vikarma (i.e. untouchability) is absolutely relevant to the contemporary world. The role of Shiva is strikingly similar to the one played by Suniel Shetty in a Bollywood flick "Mohra". This book is a very good time pass but definitely not worth than 150 Indian Rupees. You can order this book on India Plaza and it comes in just 100 INR.
Highly Recommended (8/10)
 
'The Secret of Nagas' is not that spectacular than the previous book as it is slow and more like propagation of an Ideology. Some times it seems to be a grand failure but in the end Amish successfully regenerates the magic. Its very predictable book and it unfolds the story of Ganesh, Karthik, Kali and Parushram but certainly it lacks the magic of Immortals of Meluha. The character of Daksha, that was shown very weak and gullible becomes completely villainous in the book.  This book definitely does not worth more than 100 Indian Rupees but a nice time pass. I finished the book in less than 7 hours.
Overall these two books are decent books but at many places they become full of cliches and suffer from the consistency of predictability. 
Recommended (7/10)

1 comment:

Ghalib said...

The second one of the trilogy, this book continues to excel. The secret of the Nagas is also a page turner like the first one. But, blunders started to come in, as author glorifies the technological growth at the time of the story. Have to say that, some assumptions/imaginations the author have put in is too wild to even read in a fiction book. LIke - scientiests know how to work nuclear fusion and fission, but don't know about the metal Iron ...

But, those things can be forgotten, as the book is a real page turner. Well done. :)