The Epic India Saga–A Lifetime Writing Plan in Four Wheels
EPIC INDIA: THE FIRST WHEEL
The Ramayana Series
Prince of Ayodhya
Siege of Mithila
Demons of Chitrakut
Armies of Hanuman
Bridge of Rama
King of Ayodhya
Vengeance of Ravana*
Sons of Sita*
Collected as omnibus volumes
PRINCE OF DHARMA
PRINCE IN EXILE
PRINCE AT WAR
KING OF DHARMA*
The Krishnavatara Series*
Slayer of Kamsa
Dance of Govinda
Flute of Vrindavan
Throne of Dwarka
Field of Kurukshetra
Chariot of Arjuna
Coils of Ananta
Lord of Vaikunta
To be collected as omnibus volumes
KRISHNA LEELA
RADHEY SHYAM
GITA GOVINDA
VISHNU ANANTA
The Mahabharata*
The Seeds Of War
The Children Of Midnight
As The Blind King Watched
Brothers In Exile
While War Lords Speak Of Peace
Upon This Crimson Field
When The Blue God Awakens
Beyond Black, White, and Grey
The Age of Kali
*Forthcoming
The Second Wheel of the Epic India Saga will consist of a series of retellings of historical events, starting with the lives of the Buddha, Chandragupta Maurya, Asoka, etc, upto the present day. It’s expected to be at least as long and detailed as the First Wheel, consisting of at least 15 large volumes of intense historical fiction, based entirely on factual research. Although, my very first major attempt at writing fiction was a long incomplete historical novel, titled WITH DAWN (after a quotation from Tagore), way back in my teen years, which I had to abandon because I realized I wasn’t ready to take on such a massive project that early in my life. Even now, almost thirty years later, I still feel like I need at least five more years of research, but it’s finally down to just five years now.
The Third Wheel, life and time permitting, will comprise imaginative tales, some in multiple volumes, others in single books, envisioning itihasa as it might have, should have, could have been. These will include the ‘Indus’ series starting with Gandhi’s War, the Ganesa series (“Iron Gods”, etc), the graphic novels Becoming Kali and Vetaal: The First Vampire, the Vortal Codex and other similar tales of speculative fiction and counter-factual history.
The Fourth Wheel consists of my ‘mainstream’ work such as Vertigo, Byculla Boy, my crime novels (three of which will be republished in an omnibus edition by Penguin India in 2008), several short stories, unsubmitted novels such as The Pasha of Pedder Road, the autobiographical Beautiful Ugly, and other previously published as well as incomplete and/or in-progress works of general or ‘mainstream’ fiction.
The heart of this Wheel consists of a linked set of realistic novels spanning the latter half of the 20th century and the first decade or so of the 21st. For want of a better terms, let’s call these my Bombay sequence:
The Bombay Sequence
The Pasha Of Pedder Road
This Song Like A Stone In My Fist
In India We Do It With Mirchees
Indian English Spoken Here
And in case all the above seems like the insane dream of a bibliomaniac, well, one can dream, can’t one? In any case, I’m only talking about writing the books. As was the case when I started writing my Ramayana series, it’s quite likely no publisher will want to even look at the manuscripts, let alone publish them. It’s equally possible that I won’t live long enough to finish telling all the stories, or even most of them. But what the hey, I’m 43, balding, greying, paunching, father to two fast-growing teenage kids and husband to a schoolteacher wife, I live and work surrounded by books, family, movies, and that’s pretty much it for me. A simple life, almost boring by Bombay/Mumbai standards (or any standards for that matter.) So at the least, at the very very least, I can afford to dream big, can’t I?
In the end, that’s all it may remain. The grand dream of a 14-year old back in 1978, except that now, three decades of living, learning and writing later, I finally have most of the titles right and about a dozen of the volumes written. So, who knows…
Ganesa, those are probably more armies of words than even you bargained on. But I’ll ask you anyway, please do lead on!
And you, my friend, read on.
Because in the end, after all’s said and done, written and published (or not), and I’m barely a memory (“Ashok who?“), it’s you who will decide whether or not it was all worth anything at all, or nothing. I’m just one guy trying to speak for himself, and who enjoys telling the tales of our culture. As I like to say, this isn’t just my story, it’s your story, ourstory…and above all, it’s history.
Whether or not we make itihasa together…
…let’s have fun trying!
I couldn’t think of a better way to spend this lifetime.
Thank you for your support.
I’m writing as fast as I can, yaar!
Found this cute but bloody little gif on the website of fantasy author George R. R. Martin. I’m sure most of GRRM’s fans really do wish he _could_ type that fast. His hugely loved ‘Song of Fire and Ice’ series debuted as a ‘trilogy’, then had a gap of almost three years between Book 2 and 3, and another six years to Book 4. And now he expects to wrap up the series in another two books–or not.
Well, at least he wasn’t as bad as the recently deceased Robert Jordan, author of the bestselling Wheel of Time series. That one also began way back in 1990 as a proposed ‘trilogy’. (I was one of the fortunate-unfortunates who bought a copy of the wonderful first book, The Eye of The World.) The ‘trilogy’ had grown to 11 volumes and one prequel at the time of Jordan’s death this week, and remains incomplete, almost 18 years after it began.
All of which makes me doubly glad that I write most of my books way before the series begins publication–and am in fact often the one waiting impatiently for the books to be published! I wouldn’t want to be in GRRM’s shoes–and certainly not much-lamented Robert Jordan’s.
But the animation is cute.
So tell me what you want, what you really-really want…
Okay, so here I am, finally building up this website into something worthwhile. Not a hype-my-new-book author website full of BSP or a navel-gazing blog-about-boogers, but someplace where you can actually get information, useful stuff.
Like what’s happening with my Mba, are there going be more books in my Ramayana series, what happened to all those other cool books and ideas I used to blog-talk about, like Vortal, Gandhi’s War, Iron Gods, Becoming Kali, Vetaal: The First Vampire, etc. What is the Sword of Dharma? Is there really a Ramayana film adaptation in the works? Who’s producing-directing-starring? What happened to my autobiographical docudrama Beautiful Ugly? What’s Mahayoddha Rama about and how does it relate to my Ramayana books? And all those other questions that I know are burning up brain cells in the heads of so many of you out there.
The answers are coming. Not just those but a whole bunch more. I’m also working on a long (and a short) version of my bio, which I will also post as I’m writing it–it’s going to be long, so expect it to take a while.
I’ll also do rad things that authors are apparently not supposed to do–like offer pirated versions of my own books! Yes, you read that correctly. Call me an old Radical or just an anti-authority geek. I’m also planning to publish books under both the EPIC INDIA and INDIAN ENGLISH imprints (EI and IE respectively, in short).
But most of all, none of this will be done at the expense of my real day-job: writing books, some of the ones mentioned above, but most of all, the Mba. Because that’s really what you all want to see next, isn’t it? Or the majority of you anyway. You want to get on those wild Kambhoja mares and stallions and ride with me to…”Hastinapura where the blind king ruled”…Well, there’s been some developments on that front, and it’s possible the long wait may come to an end sooner than some of you expected. Although of course, I’m sure I can never please readers like the young collegian who asked me, ‘Why can’t you just publish all 18 books together and put them in the bookstores?’ Yeah, right, and Rome can be built in, like, 23 hours and a few minutes.
But most of all, this site is about you, not me. It’s yourspace, not myspace, a community center, our personal Orkut or whatever you want to call it. I’m going to resurrect the message boards (have still got all your old posts) and even perhaps re-start the old group.
And I want to know what you think, what you want, what you really-really want…
So talk to me, guys. Go to the Readerswrite page (link at the top of the page) and send me a comment with your suggestions, wants, needs. Extra toppings, sure, would you prefer anchovies or chilli-paneer? Go on. Text me now. Your comment is my command.
Now live and online!
Okay. We’re up and running. Thanks to some snappy tech work by our friendly neighbourhood wizard, Banwari Lal Sharma. (No surprise that the site he works for was just selected as a Red Herring Asia 100 company.)
The Readerswrite page is chockful of reader comments and my responses already. Some very interesting discussions and observations there, check it out. Better still, join in the melee! (The ‘FAQ’s (Frequently Asked Questions) have also moved to the Readerswrite page.
The site’s still a work in progress so expect glitches for a few weeks. Site Editor Richard Marcus has still to take the baton and lead the orchestra, so right now I’m still running around backstage and (probably pulling all the wrong ropes). But keep checking back and expect a LOT of news, information on me and my work–including the upcoming Mba series, my original animated film Mahayoddha, the Sword of Dharma (what’s that, you wonder? Well, wait and see!) and much more.
Keep in touch.
Sword of Dharma
The greatest conflict is not the struggle of right against wrong.
It’s the struggle of one right against another.
SWORD OF DHARMA
An Epic India Production
From the author of the Ramayana Series
Visit and bookmark The Official Sword of Dharma Website for updates and information.
RECENTLY READ (August-September 2007)
The Mahabharata 3. The Book of The Forest, Translated and Edited by J.A.B. van Buitenen
The Mahabharata 2. The Book of The Assembly Hall, Translated and Edited by J.A.B. van Buitenen
The Mahabharata 1. The Book of The Beginning, Translated and Edited by J.A.B. van Buitenen
The Sauptikaparvan of The Mahabharata: The Massacre at Night, a new verse translation by W.J. Johnson
B.P.R.D. The Soul of Venice and Other Stories by Mike Mignolla
The Faith of a Writer by Joyce Carol Oates
Dark Hollow by John Connolly
Children of Light by Robert Stone
Darkest Day by Mark Chadbourn
Earthboy Jacobus by Doug Tennapel
Box Office Poison by Alex Robinson
Tricked by Alex Robinson
Free Food for Millionaires by Min Jin Lee
Potshot by Robert B. Parker
A Storm of Swords by George R. R. Martin
The Wayfarer Redemption by Sara Douglass
Hugger Mugger by Robert B. Parker
The Mind of the Modern Moviemaker: Twenty Conversations with the New Generation of Filmmakers by Josh Horowitz
Hindu Scriptures Edited with new translations by Dominic Goodall
The Mahabharata of Krishna Dweipayana-Vyasa Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli (1 of 4 volumes)
The Skrayling Tree by Michael Moorcock
A Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi
The Collected Poems of George Seferis
Stranger Music by Leonard Cohen
The Dark Horse Book of Witches
The Dark Horse Book of Hauntings
Couscous Express by Brian Wood
The Throat by Peter Straub
Otherland: City of Golden Shadow by Tad Williams
Humans by Robert J. Sawyer
Stripped by Brian Freeman
Scar Night by Alan Campbell
The Stonehenge Gate by Jack Williamson
Kill Me by Stephen White
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
The Truth by Peter James
Adventures in the Dream Trade by Neil Gaiman
The Sunrise Lands by S.M. Stirling
The Mahabharata of Vyasa transcreated by Professor P. Lal, Adi Parva, original edition (in 25 volumes) and revised one-volume edition.
Seer of the Fifth Veda by Bruce M. Sullivan.
The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss.
Oblivion by Peter Abrahams.
Plainsong by Kent Haruf.
The House by Bentley Little.
Yuganta by Iravati Karve
The Store by Bentley Little.
Invisible Prey by John Sandford.
An Index to The Names in the Mahabharata by P. Sorenson.
Noble House by James Clavell.
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky.
Transformation by Carol Berg.
Temptation by Douglas Kennedy.
Hit Parade by Lawrence Block.
The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards.
The Mahabharata: An Enquiry In The Human Condition by Chaturvedi Badrinath
Echo Park by Michael Connelly.
Mr Clarinet by Nick Stone.
Small Town by Lawrence Block.
The Indonesia Mahabharata: Adi Parva
The Killing Kind by John Connolly.
Mba
(Note: This page is still being revised by me. –AKB)
I began work on my Mba, as I call it, back in 2004, when I finished the Ramayana series. But the research, study and thinking that went into the series actually began years earlier, in the late Nineties when my childhood interest in mythology and the epics was revived by certain personal events. So in a sense, you could say that I’ve spent my entire life (43 years and counting) preparing for, researching, and working toward this one story.
As of this writing, on a cool, overcast Thursday in early September 2007, I’m nowhere near finished. In a way, each day I sit down to work on this epic feels like the first day all over again. No amount of reading, researching, studying, writing, rewriting, re-rewriting, re-re-re…you get the picture…no amount of work can make me an ‘expert’ on this great story of stories. Because the Mahabharata is, in a sense, the mother of all stories, an ocean of stories, a forest of stories, and it truly is all-encompassing. Our entire culture is contained within it, our entire pre-history, or, to use a less sexist word which I prefer, our itihasa. To do justice to it is demanding every ounce of my resources. And I was never a particularly brilliant or talented writer to begin with, nor a very gifted scholar, so I have to work much harder to compensate for all those failings. There are days I wish someone else would do it and do a better job of it…and yet, when the writing is going well, or when I experience a stunning flash of insight, I wouldn’t want to give up one moment of this long, hard labour of love.
And so it goes.
Those of you who’ve read my Ramayana series and are waiting eagerly for the Mba to appear in stories, I’m afraid you’ll have to wait a while longer. Perhaps years longer. That’s because, unlike with my Ramayana series, where I had to permit publishers to start publishing the early volumes even as I worked on the later ones, I couldn’t bear to do the same with this story. For one thing, it’s a much larger story in every sense of the word–longer, many more characters, incidents, details, sub-plots, etc. For another thing, I’m fortunate enough to not need to pre-sell it to raise financial support for the actual writing. In short, I can afford to take my time, and to write the story through before revising, rewriting, editing, etc, and only when I’m completely satisfied with the results, offer it for publication.
The good news is that once I finish, the whole series will be complete and available for publication. And hopefully, publishers will be able to bring out the books much faster. The six volumes of my Ramayana series were published over a period of 39 months (3 years, 3 months), which was in itself astonishingly fast. I’m hoping that publishers will see fit to publish my Mba at an even faster pace: My ideal time-span would be 18 books in 36 months, which is a book every alternate month. I’m told this is impossible given the usual trade limitations of the publishing business in India, but I still hope. I think two months is more than enough time for a reader to finish reading a 1,000-page book, and so, 18 books of around 1,000 pages each published over 36 months would be the closest to a ‘continuous’ storytelling experience possible. It would, of course, be a record of sorts in the history of publishing, besides being the longest single story ever published, to my knowledge at least. But those are minor matters: In the end, these decisions will be taken by publishers, not me. As some of you may be aware already, authors have little say in either the publication process or even the final appearance of their books. The only thing we do have total control over is writing the work; and that’s why I’m taking all the time and effort possible to get it right.
But writing is only the beginning, in a way. Because the truth of the matter is, my Mba may never see the light of day at all. Think about it. A work of this size. Which publisher would take it on? In India, I have tremendous faith in my current publishers and editors; they’ve done a great job with my Ramayana series and other books, and I’ve no doubt they’ll support my Mba all the way as well. But outside India, I have faint hopes of the work being published at all. It’s too big, too massive in size and scope, it doesn’t fit any of the commercial parameters of present-day publishing, and in every sense of the word, it’s not at all a viable proposition, business-wise. I’m already resigned to the fact that my Mba will be published only in India, which means, even at the end of years of work, and a lifetime of preparation, study and effort, I won’t have much financial compensation to show for all that work.
But let’s face it, if I was only interested in the money, I’d be writing movie screenplays for a living. Or writing bestsellers. Or working in advertising or television or a more dependable-paying profession. Or at the very least, I’d have done what numerous agents and publishers abroad have urged me to do: taken only select portions of the story and written them as an ‘epic fantasy’ trilogy. One agent even said he could get me an advance matching the one he’d secured for an American fantasy author he represented: the figure in question was $10 million for three books (world rights).
Nobody decides to take on a story like the Mahabharata single-handedly and devote years to it with any expectation of financial rewards. As one reviewer said, quite eloquently in his exuberant, effusive review of my Ramayana books, I must be ‘quite mad’. It’s a wonderful madness, and I wouldn’t trade it for all the millions in fantasy publishing.
So, I have no good news for those of you waiting eagerly for my Mba to appear in stores. It will take as much time as it takes. And once it’s done, it may or may not be published. And if I’m not totally bankrupt by then (a surprisingly common circumstance in my life, despite my surname), then I’ll hopefully find the resources and support to do it again, with my next series, which is, I’m afraid, even more ambitious and less commercially promising than my Mba: A 25-volume historical fiction retelling all the major events of Indian history from the Buddha to the present-day in a sweeping epic historical narrative spanning 2500 years.
But that’s another windmill to be tilted at another day.
Warmest wishes
Ashok Banker
Lokhandwala, Mumbai, India
Update: 1 December 2007: As of now, it looks like I’m at least a year away from finishing the series. Which means that the Mba will not see print before 2009. I know a lot of you who have been waiting for a long time are going to be disappointed to hear that. What can I say? Hastinapura wasn’t built in a day–neither was Indraprastha! Sabar ka phal meetha…
SLAYER OF KAMSA: Book 1 of The Krishna Coriolis will be out next month (October). Written in a pacier style than my Ramayana Series, this short impactful book details the rise to power of the monstrous Kamsa and his brutal campaign to thwart the birth of the prophesied 8th Child. 