Shiva Trilogy.

I am itching to write again, which I have to admit hasn't happened for some time now.

So I have decided to review Immortals of Meluha and Secret of the Nagas. Infact, it is more than just a review, in the sense that I want to also discuss the philosophies Amish Tripathi has mentioned in the two of the three now-released books, which are a part of the trilogy.

I read Immortals of Meluha pretty late, as in long after it had been released and had already gone on to become a best-seller, but when I read it, I felt it was a brilliant justification for the mythology which I have otherwise come to disbelieve.

The books are based on the life of Shiva, not the Lord Shiva but a common man who takes the form of a lord only because of a belief among the people that the Neelkanth or the person who has a blue throat would turn up to be their savior. And so the Suryavanshis are perpetually in search of such a man and come across a person named Shiva who heads a tribe near the Mount Kailasa.

The Suryavanshis already possess excellent medicinal skills and also the Sanjeevni which is known to cure most illnesses. One effect of taking this medicine is that the blue throat of Shiva becomes highly visible. The people believe that he is their Lord who has been sent to 'save' them and help them fight the 'evil' that the Nagas and the Chandravanshis are spreading. Also, he meets his Sati.

At this point, I'd like to quote from the Immortals of Meluha:

Whether a man is a legend or not is decided by history, not by fortune tellers.

I found a few pretty profound statements in the book. And this is definitely one of them!

In the Immortals, Shiva goes on to believe everything the Suryavanshis tell him at face value about 'good' and 'evil' and helps them defeat the 'evil' Chandravanshis in a full blown war. He also comes to believe that the Nagas are the most evil.

What Amish says in the Secret of the Nagas can be summed up in a couple of lines.

There are two ways of life: Masculine and Feminine.

Masculine way of life is "life by laws". People live by Truth, Duty and Honour, rigidly following all rules and laws with no exceptions and hence it is a predictable way of life. Change is difficult for the masculine, therefore when a masculine civilisation declines it causes a lot of turmoil, violence and chaos. Suryavanshis strictly follow this way of life.

Feminine way of life is "life by probabilities". There are no absolutes, and the same laws can be interpreted differently at different times. Change is the only constant, and people live by Passion, Beauty and Freedom. But with too much freedom it can decline into decadence, corruption and debauchery. Chandravanshis prefer this way of life.

At an individual level also, both masculine and feminine traits exist within every man and woman. But most people have a dominant trait of the two.

Err.. okay not a couple of lines! But I guess you get the point. So the part about 'good' and 'evil' is where it gets a lot more philosophical.

First, it is all about perception, about which side of the fence you're facing. Second, one can simply not exist without another!

Evil cannot and should not be destroyed completely. That is, it only needs to be taken out of the equation at the right time, the time when it rises to cause total annihilation. Because the same evil may serve the purpose of Good in another time.

For most of the time, I found myself nodding to the philosophy stated in the books. Right from depicting 'GOD' as not somebody on a pedestal but as a human being who has his fallacies to marrying fiction with mythology! Shiva has been depicted as a 'cool dude' as one of my friends puts it, with a chillum in his hand, smoking marijuana, behaving like a college-guy in love, making mistakes and being unsure, and actually wondering why being not-materialistic is so overrated; and not as what we have been made to believe what God is.

This entire blend has made these books what they are. There is one more quote which is so applicable especially in our society.

If the entire society was conscious of its duties, nobody would need to fight for their individual rights. Since everybody's rights would be automatically taken care of through someone else's duties.

These books are more than just mythology or just fiction, because they're not Amar Chitra Katha, they're not bed-time stories, but they're definitely a refreshing point of view, a very different perspective and a fresher way of expression. It is not even as if we're unaware of all these things, or haven't thought about them, but seeing everything bound together with sheer brilliance is amazing!

I'll leave you with another something from the book.

Believe the theory that gives you peace and reject the one that causes you pain.

So, to each his own I guess.

P.S. Just out of curiosity, I am wondering if someone will land here through a search on marijuana ;)

Aivei...

After quite a long time, I am looking at this interface... and this time not coz I was busy, it is coz I was toooo free :P Do I crib... or DO I crib!!?

22 April as the day of my previous post seems so long back! And not that I haven't written anything, just that nothing ended up on the blog...

And at the moment I am out of topics to write about. And I have anyway been instructed to write about myself, and not some book or movie or political issue. *points at Mads aka Madhuri Iyer*

So... I have been cooped up for like, fifteen days now, and that is enough to make me go crazy... because I hate sitting and doing nothing! And now, finally with the German classes starting tomorrow, I have something to look forward to.

But... the upshot is, I got to connect and re-connect with a few people on so many levels! :D Funny how the dynamics of relations change!

And... I finally finished reading Fault Lines by Raghuram Rajan, a little high level economics as had been duly conveyed to me before I started reading, but well, with a few terms still unexplained, I did manage to finish it. Also, I finished Immortals of Meluha by Amish Tripathi and according to me, it is a 'bloody brilliant book in which he has managed to philosophize, blend fiction with mythology and create a thriller all at the same time', and it has resulted in me ordering the second part of the trilogy, which will be be delivered in a day or two I suppose.

For those of you yet unfamiliar with the concept of 'book delivery', go to flipkart.com ;) And now they should pay me for advertising :P

There are some really awesome sitcoms I have gotten hooked to... The Big Bang Theory and White Collar, both of which won't start airing further episodes for another month or so I guess. :-s So another 'something' I have to wait for... like a lot of other things. It is a pretty frustrating period!

And especially for the Nagpur junta... if you come to know of some really interesting workshops, keep me posted please. :) :)

This is as much I can write about myself without going on to being narcissistic.

So I suppose I am going to return with some issue or review. Sooner or later... :-w

Before you circulate that petition...

A few days back on twitter, a conversation with @corruptupa took place, initiated by them, tweeting to me the same thing they've tweeted to a thousand others.

Here's how it goes:

corruptupa

@akansha_89 85+ people have signed petition against @bdutt of @ndtv. Have you? read & support @YKSHEETAL .Petition@ http://goo.gl/CvuRH

@corruptupa and what will you do with the petition? frame it on my wall? huh!

corruptupa

@akansha_89 How ignorant can you be?

@corruptupa I'm not ignorant.I'm tired of signing petitions which go nowhere.Put your name on a piece of paper and your responsibility ends?

They haven't replied yet. I didn't expect one either.

But that is not my point. My point is simply what I mention in my last tweet. You issue a petition for what you call a national cause, and maybe you believe it too. I do not contest the belief, but what I do object to, is the fact that you issue no credible reasons for the same when you're asking me to share that belief.

It's not just about this one, signing the petition to support Hazare was a fashion rage, everybody was rushing to do it, because everybody else was doing it. Every second link on my facebook page showed the massive support Hazare and his campaign were getting! Why is it that people don't stop to read, understand, form an opinion, and consider opinions of people who are qualified enough to give them?

How many of them actually knew that there were two bills, one proposed by the government and the other by the Hazare people? What is the guarantee that the head of the Lokpal Committee will be above corruption? Will the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha actually let the bill pass, given the fact that it goes against themselves!? Doesn't it look like a lot of politics? Gimmicks? Hasn't Hazare's biggest supporter Ramdev baba publicly aired his intention of entering politics and creating a new party for himself? Questions galore, questions to which you had to demand proven answers, before you could even think about signing that petition.

Also it brings me to the next factor, where is this petition going? To the President? I doubt she has an email address! PMO? but you're including him. SC judges? they aren't above the bill either. So call it trivial, but in all, all you ended up doing was increasing the load on the servers.

Now let's talk about the bill.

I am the last person on the earth who will defend the ministers on allegations of corruption, but understand that there is a difference between allegations and charges. You can't charge someone until you have proof, and if you have the proof, the gates of the courts are open! Contest it! Fight it! Prove it! And till you can't, you can be opinionated, you can be critical, but you still can't be the judge.

I don't have a solution to the problem, and there I see people going, well if you don't have a solution, why don't you at least support what someone else is trying to do in order to improve the situation...? But that is exactly my point!! When, in the wide world did you stop thinking for yourself? Just because it looks good does not mean it has to be? Whatever happened to reading, mulling it over, figuring it out, with facts, figures, statistics?

About corruption itself? Well, if you're so eager to see corrupt ministers leave politics, can you suggest some who are not? If you're given that post tomorrow, will you refuse the crore rupees? Won't you think that if you have made the future of your kids secure, you've done something with your life? Of course that does not justify corruption, nor should it! But at least at the lower rungs if you start offering better salaries and retirement benefits, would you not be removing that reason to accept the bribe?

In my opinion, bribes are taken for two reasons. One is to secure the future. Second is because everybody knows even if you're found out, nobody remembers it beyond a few days.

To conclude, I think that if everybody understood that one line from Spiderman (at least that's where I heard it first) for all that it stands for, the world, or at least the country would be an infinitely better place to live in.

With great power comes great responsibility.

Those with power, take the responsibility. And give the power to those who are responsible.

Enough Said!