Reading this series has already inspired me. Reading it makes me want to wake up early to feel the cool morning air and to enjoy the calmness of dawn. It makes me want to run and to absorb nature. It makes me want to become a better version of myself.

To spend more time in prayer. To learn more. To become stronger, fitter. To exert more willpower. To love the world even more. To make firm friendships. To care less about trivialities. To…live.

This book changed my life.

Of conflicts and conversations

The sheer awe experienced by the reader in books one and two at encountering Banker’s world returns with book six and I was held spellbound for nearly nine-tenths of the storyline. Be it the way in which the bridge eventually materializes, Ravana’s seemingly inextinguishable source of demonic power or the battle sequences that ensue upon the arrival of the army on Lanka, events occur on a scale unmatched previously in the series. In fact, one would have to say that it stands non-pareil in all of the fantasy genre

One small step for man, One giant leap for vaanar-kind

‘Bridge of Rama’ keeps one hooked all through to the end because of a sense of urgency that the author brings to Hanuman’s mission to Lanka, in that there is a ‘deadline’ to be met. Also, the reader’s awareness of Lanka is raised to a higher level; the island kingdom, a remote whisper at the beginning of the series, gets clearer with every piece of description until it feels as if one knows Lanka better than Ayodhya. Ravana’s enigma transfers itself onto Lanka as well, and as with the former, the effect on the reader is begrudging admiration

Bankers Ramayana – More than just a story

Ashok Bankers Ramayana is much much more than a retelling of an age old tale. All the books do exactly what the Ramayana is meant to do, teach the reader the path of dharma. Banker has done a great job of creating situations where the choice to path of righteousness is a hard one, and shown the reader that the choice is almost never the easy one, but Rama, a true soldier of dharma, will choose it nonetheless.

A couple of other things come across more saliently as I read Bridge of Rama.