“Kuchh toh log kahenge…”: Readerswrite reviews of the Ramayana series
Hi there. It’s only a few days to the VORTAL launch, and I’m trying to vary the contents of this blog from my recent run of reviews, reviews, and more reviews.
So I decided to post a couple of reviews for a change–but not by me, this time. They’re reader reviews culled from the many emails that come to me either through this blog or through my website Epic India.
These two or three in particular struck as saying so much more about the writers than about the books being reviewed. Which, to me, is what makes a very good review.
Because, if all reviewers only talked about the books (or films, or music, or whatever) being reviewed, then they might as well be written by publisher’s bots, or Amazon.com editors.
It’s the personal insights that make a review really special, and give you a connection with the work (or with the themes underlying the work, or anything else connected however remotely) that makes the viewpoint memorable.
So, without further personal insights of my own (!), here’s the first of my favourite new Reader’s Reviews of my Ramayana books. This one’s by Meenakshi Srinivasan, currently residing in the sunny state of California, USA, but a desi through and through.
“Eleven days ago, I finally got my hands on the first four books of The Ramayana by Ashok Banker. I started to read the Prince of Ayodhya and had to stay uptil 2am finishing it, earning the ire of all members of the family. Then I had to sleep and wait for the weekend to begin The Seige of Mithila owing to my commitment to my marriage and family! My eyes couldnt take in the words fast enough to get to The Demons of Chitrakoot. Then it was time for me to stop all the reading and go on an amazing “vacation” to get back to my self. I willed myself to write this post before I finish reading The Armies of Hanuman as I want to save some bit to relish while awaiting the last few volumes. Ashok, if you are reading this, let me tell you that I LOVE your style and speed. It was so fast-paced. And guess what, after reading about Rama doing his Sandhyavandan, my son has become more regular with it!! He feels so connected with a character like Rama who wears Indian clothes, does Indian stuff and eats Indian food. No pizza and coke, no jeans and Tees but with all the “cool” stuff like in the Lord of the Rings or even Harry Potter, couldnt have it better! And what a story, as old as time and yet as relevant today as it was thousands of years ago.
“The Ramayana has always symbolized Love in all its shades to me. It was intriguing to read a narrative where there is absolutely no overt expression of “love” but is simply experienced as a life fully expressed and lived at every turn of the page. The fantasia of an epic that has created more connections in my brain than anything else made me look within to see the enthusiasm and joy welling up.
“To top this I was in an amazing experience of a “training”(?) and just let the love flow through and out of me. I can just summarise that experience with language that cannot truly convey everything but here I go: Once there was a heart (am giving you a graphic representation as words are sort of hard to come by to explain!) and around the age of 5, I put it in a box. As the years rolled by, I made this box bigger by letting in all the situations and people in along with the lessons and knowledge they brought in. This included books, music and all my various interests and hobbies. Then, a decade ago I did the Art of Living course and during one of the processes, this box vanished on me. It was beautiful, I looked beautiful too after that course and soon, the box came right back with the course inside. Meeting with the Guru, being in the presence of truth (satsangh), meditating, giving of myself to a friend or my child or even doing dishes (rarely though!), the box would vanish and the heart would flow. This Friday, that box vanished after an intense expereince of letting go that went on for more than 5 hours.
“Ra (light) m (within me) had vanquished Ravana (the ego- the box). It is now Deepavali. Love.”
–Meenakshi Srinivasan, currently based in California
And this one’s from a reader in Bangalore who recently discovered my work. For those of you who don’t know this already, I’m available to correspond with any reader of my books. (My email address is right there on the top right hand section of this page, at the end of my profile.)
I’ve corresponded with several thousand readers of my books, from all corners of the world, and it’s a wonderfully enlightening and illuminating experience. Always a pleasure to hear from a new reader and to hear what he or she has found worthwhile in my books (or not found worthwhile, because I’m always open to criticism as well.)
Except for the occasional crackpot or racist or bigot (there are a few, sadly, but these make up barely 2% of my overall correspondents, so I guess I must be doing something right), these emails are always hugely encouraging to me in my work. More than that, they give me interesting insights into the lives of so many people–mostly Indians, since my readership is about 90% Indian worldwide–and their individual problems and issues and loves and hates.
This reader below, Ananth Padmanabhan (hi Paddy!), is employed with a well-known IT firm in Bangalore, and these quotes below are his own selected excerpts from his lengthy opinions of my Ramayana books:
“I read your interview about your early life to a foreign journalist. Perhaps, those difficult days have moulded you into what you’re now. I was also awed to read the comment by none less than MV Kamath that if Valmiki was blessed by Brahma 2500 years back, why not the modern-day Ashok Banker. Very true! I felt so too. You must be gifted like an MS Subbalakshmi, like a Bismillah Khan, like APJ Abdul Kalam, like Sachin Tendulkar, like Unnikrishnan, like Sania Mirza, like CV Raman, like AR Rahman…. It is indeed the Bramhan power that’s flowing inside all of us that gets tapped (with the right attempts, prompts, training etc.) which flows out and feeds the world in so many ways.
“I felt that Ravana’s Tower of Kama in Armies of Hanuman was gory to say the least. I guess the objective of your effort is to communicate to readers that Ravana was worse than the worst imaginable person (dead or now living). I loved reading about Sita getting a fleeting feeling of similarity in one of the faces of Ravana with one of the visitors to her father’s court. She feels this at a moment when she’s to be kidnapped by him. Also, she wonders how her life would be if she had 10 heads. And the heads talking to each other in many different languages, tenors, modes. Awesome imagination!â€?
“I read an excerpt of Mahabaratha from your EpicIndia website. It is, to say the least, breathtaking. It’s an explosive and unimaginably different beginning.
“When Rama was standing on the banks of River Godavari and was addressing Supanaka’s he unhesitatingly apologized to her brothers for the mistake that Lakshman made. In the same vein he pardoned Supanaka for making advances towards him, a married man. I used that on the day after I read it to sort out an issue in office of unhesitatingly apologizing while pardoning the other party. It was a successful method.�
–Ananth Padmanabhan, Bangalore
This one’s from a lady in South Africa, apparently a place where I have many readers, because I’ve had readers come up to me at my book launches and I invariably ask them where they’re from and one place I keep hearing mentioned frequently is ‘South Africa’. (Other places where I seem to have a lot of readers are Singapore, Malaysia, and Canada.)
“Dear Ashok, I have read the first three books of the Ramayana and have just purchased the 4th book. I am a 35 year old businesswoman and mother of 2 and for a long time been starved of “good reading” – quality novels with a good story are very hard to find.
“I found the Prince of Ayodhya at the science fiction section of our book store – an area where I really never look for a good read!
“I was pregnant at the time with my second daughter. Needless to say, highly disappointed when our book store did not have the second novel in stock.
“Your version has made the Ramayana all come alive and I feel as though I am reading it for the first time. The Ramayana as I have read it (and as was read to me by my grandmother)while growing up has been a little far fetched and I really read it only for the spiritual lessons one must search for…I mean, flying monkeys was a little hard to believe.
“The Ramayana is a tale of good over evil – but more so, it is an indication of being in control of our destinies by the choices we make – evil influences are the endless desires we have in a world where having it all is not enough. Sita’s desire for the golden deer is indicative of this “want”…..
“Having had a rudimentary understanding of the lessons one should learn from the Ramayana, I now read your book with glee and a new found understanding. You have made the characters in this novel, real; for as I understand them, they were in human form and while they were supreme beings; they must have been faced with the same challenges that other human beings face. This is what is so exciting for me. I still look for the lessons but enjoy getting caught up in the world as you describe it in Sath Yug.
“I thank you for writing these novels and for re-inspiring me. Never before have I waited in such anticipation for the next novel. I hope that you have started the next novel already and that once this is completed the Mahabarata is next on your list of books to write – this epic; I have no doubt will keep you thoroughly busy for a long time. I will certainly be one of your fans and eternally grateful for this. God Bless!!”
–Urvashi Maganlal, Johannesberg, South Africa
That’s it for now. There are tons more. But I have to go change a tyre–the one around my waist, actually–at the gym!
:~) Just kidding. But seriously, I’m back to work now. If you want to read more reviews of my Ramayana series, by readers, or by critics, just click on the title of this blogpost and it will take you to the Readerswrite page of my website.
See you soon.
And don’t forget, even if you’re busy before that, be here next Wednesday, 12th October, for the first episode of my brand new fantasy novel, VORTAL.
This entry was posted on Saturday, October 8th, 2005 at 1:41 pm. It is filed under Ashok.
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