Publisher’s
write-up:
‘India is beset with divisions, resentment, and
poverty. The people hate their rulers. They despise their corrupt and selfish
elite. Chaos is just one spark away. Outsiders exploit these divisions. Raavan,
the demon king of Lanka, grows increasingly powerful, sinking his fangs deeper
into the hapless Sapt Sindhu.
Two powerful tribes, the protectors of the divine land
of India, decide that enough is enough. A saviour is needed. They begin their
search.
An abandoned baby is found in a field. Protected by a
vulture from a pack of murderous wolves. She is adopted by the ruler of
Mithila, a powerless kingdom, ignored by all. Nobody believes this child will
amount to much. But they are wrong. For she is no ordinary girl. She is Sita.’
This is the
second book in the Ram Chandra Series of Amish Tripathi. However, this book is
slightly different from the more famous Shiva Trilogy of the author wherein,
the subsequent book picks up exactly from the point where the previous books
left off. While the first book unfolded the character of Ram, this book focuses
on Sita, the Princess of Mithila.
King Janak and
Queen Sunaina come across a vulture defending a little girl from a pack of
wolves and adopt her as the Princess of Mithila, a small kingdom in the east of
Indian sub-continent. She grows up to be a strong young girl, taking interest
in combat and horse riding. Mithila is a kingdom facing acute financial crisis
and completely dependent on the Kingdom of Sanskhaya, ruled by Janak’s brother.
However, a confrontation between Sita and her uncle over the unreasonable terms
he proposed to Mithila changes the destiny of her kingdom and herself, as she
is sent away for studies.
Sita’s growth
was brought out well, a highly pragmatic individual who does what she believes
is right and agrees to something only if she is convinced about it, even if it
is from her teacher. This is often shown when she does not hesitate to speak
her mind even in front of highly respected Maharishis
such as Vashishta or Vishwamitra. There was also political unrest – ever
since the defeat of the Ayodhyan Empire at the hands of the Lankan demon king
Raavan and the trade sanctions thereon, the people are looking for a saviour who
will save them from the menace of Raavan. However, the ones entrusted with the
responsibility to find the saviour, have their own interests to look into and
have a dislike for each other. Amongst this existing turmoil, Sita’s skills as
the Prime Minister of Mithila is brought out where she improves law and order,
builds new houses to increase the standard of living among various other things
while also looking out for securing larger interests while going out on
diplomatic missions as the Prime Minister.
I have always
been reviewing this story as something totally distinct from Ramayan despite
the novels being based on the book and thus I wouldn’t comment on the
deviations thereon. However, I can’t help but notice a few things. For one, I
am tired of Amish trying to milk from the populist sentiment going on in India
at the time of the release of his books – he did in the first book, The Scion of Ikshvaku (click here forreview). He did it again here – for instance, there was a reference to surgical strike drawing parallel to
India’s cross border military operations during September 2016 (click here for more details). There was more, wherein, there was a part in the story dedicated
to Jallikattu – a bull taming sport
in Tamil Nadu, southern India, where there were massive protests against a ban
on the sport in the state of Tamil Nadu during January 2017 (click here for more details). He went on to describe how the sport was far superior to similar
sports played in ‘far away foreign lands’,
an open reference to the Spanish bull fighting sport – and similar
arguments were used by proponents of the sport in Tamil Nadu which the author
has merely reflected in the book. I was tempted to do some research whilst
reading those sections and I found that the story, according the author was in
4500 BC whereas, neither Spanish bull fighting nor Jallikattu are that old. Of
course, there is also the author trying to pander to the overall Indian
nationalist sentiment at present by mentioning the word India at every possible opportunity (which was not the case with
Shiva Trilogy) and of course, the trademark catchphrase, wherein, Sita was
entrusted to ‘Make India Great Again’ (everyone
knows that stupid tagline of the current office bearer of The President of the
United States of America).
I would say that I would laud the author for
choosing a different format to present the new series (that is dedicating a
separate book to build the main characters) and also the way in which Sita’s
character was built. But the philosophical discussions, I would say that he was
at it again with his ‘masculine thought’ and
‘feminine thought’; and what I could
understand by it was that by the former, he meant conservative ideas and by the
latter, he meant liberalism / centre-left ideas – he really need not have
associated any gender to these.
To conclude, I
would say that this novel did enough to keep me gripped but then, was not free
from flaws, and I would have really liked if he had just altogether avoided the
populist references, especially where some of them had no relevance to the
story. I would award the book a rating of six on ten.
Rating
– 6/10
Have
a nice day,
Andy
Andy
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