Jaya: An Illustrated Retelling Of The Mahabharata by Devdutt PattanaikMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Where do I even begin to review this book? I am just glad I bought it when I did.
I was on my way back to Boston from Hyderabad, India and had a lot of time to kill at the airport after the security check. As I was wandering in the airport bookstore, I came across this book, read the back cover and was hooked. It goes thus,
"A son renounces sex so that his old father can remarry
A daughter is a prize in an archery contest
A teacher demands half a kingdom as his tuition fee
A student is turned away because of his caste
A mother asks her sons to share a wife
A father curses his son-in-law to be old and impotent
A husband lets another man make his wife pregnant
A wife blindfolds herself to share her husband's blindness
A forest is destroyed for a new city
A family is divided over inheritance
A king gambles away his kingdom
A queen is forced to serve as a maid
A man is stripped of his manhood for a year
A woman is publicly disrobed
A war is fought where all rules are broken
A shift in sexuality secures victory
The vanquished go to paradise
The victors lose their children
The earth is bathed in blood
God is cursed
Until wisdom prevails"
I grew up listening to stories from the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, but I was always partial towards the Mahabharata. I don't know whether it was because of Krishna's adorable childhood antics, the myriad of heroic characters each with their own prowess, or because the unfortunate tale of the Pandava brothers struck a cord in my heart. Honestly, the Mahabharata is an epic in the true sense of the word. The scope is so vast and there are so many characters that typically most interpretations just skim the events and dwell on the famous warring cousins, the Pandavas and the Kauravas.
Anyway, coming back to Devdutt Pattanaik's retelling, I think he makes it more interesting by presenting much more than the bare bones of the story. He delves into the sub-plots, significance of little known events, different folk-lores and the numerous stories within stories which make up the real Mahabharata conceptualized by Ved Vyasa. I absolutely loved it, if I haven't said so before already!
Devdutt Pattanaik is a mythologist by passion, according to his Goodreads bio and I think he does this job exceptionally well. Any lover of Hindu mythology will not be disappointed by this book.
View all my reviews
I just finished reading the Palace of Illusions by CBD and found the book gripping in every sense of the term..and as a fellow (fan shall I say) of mahabharat, I now want to read the story from every perspective. Its truly epic!
ReplyDeleteYes, I really liked that book as well! And anything and everything about the Mahabharata and its bazillion anecdotes is pure awesomeness! :)
ReplyDelete