For those of you – “you few, you happy few!” – who’ve bought and read the exclusive limited signed AKB BOOKS edition of VoR and have ordered the exclusive limited signed AKB BOOKS edition of SoS, this may not be reason to jump up and down, which is bad for your joints anyway. But for the vast majority of Ramayana Series readers out there, I’m sure you will be happy to see why I chose to rescind my own earlier decision to end the series at six books and chose to continue it in these two additional volumes. I can’t promise that the answers I provide in these two books will please everyone. Indeed, they may please no one. Because the point of writing these books is not to please or displease, it’s simply to complete the mental journey I embarked upon when I began writing Prince of Ayodhya and finished that first book way back in the year 2000, long before any publisher was willing to even look at such a manuscript, let alone publish it. Today, I have journalists, readers, editors, booksellers, publishers and others who keep writing to me and telling me that I’m responsible for a wave of resurgence in Indian mythology. I really don’t give a damn about any resurgence or the commercial ramifications of making mythology “cool” as one editor put it. What I do care about is the wealth of great Indian literature that has been ignored by the world for so long in favour of other mythologies and legends of the western hemisphere and that deserves a wider readership and exposure.

As I’ve always said to anyone who praised me for the series: This is not about me. It’s not my story alone. It’s our story. Our history in fact. I’m proud and happy to have been the one to retell it in my humble and flawed attempt. But I’m not anyone special or talented for having done it, just a product of a great culture and people that share one of the world’s finest storytelling traditions. In my opinion, the finest.

Just a reminder to use the AKB Books Request Form to book your limited signed copies of the above titles. This particular list of my next 4 titles will stay online until 31st August 2010. After that, a new list will be put up which will be valid for the next three or four months. And so on. Due to the number of my published titles and the high demand, I am not able to offer signed copies of previous books at present, just the titles listed above. Each of these will be limited signed (but not personalized) editions and once this limited stock is over, these titles will not be available again! So book your signed copy now and don’t miss your chance to be one of very few readers worldwide to own one!

And in case you were wondering, it doesn’t cost you a rupee (or even a paisa) to book these copies!

Waiting eagerly for my next books? Book your copies now!
AKB Books, the limited signed editions of a few select titles of my work, available exclusively via this website, are all currently sold out. However, if you wish to ensure your copy of any forthcoming AKB Books title, all you have to do is fill in the Request Form to book your copies! Don’t worry about payment – you will be contacted once the book is available and informed of the necessary details.

AKB MBA is on its way at last!
After all the ups and downs of the past several months (and years), I have finally found a way to share my Mahabharata retelling with all those of you interested in reading it. No, it still won’t be mass published and distributed in bookstores worldwide – I’ve already explained earlier why that isn’t likely to happen anytime soon – but it will be available from this website in a few months, before the end of this year. If you wish to ensure your copy, please fill in the Request Form now, and keep in touch with this website from time to time.

THE VALMIKI SYNDROME
Next in line for publication is THE VALMIKI SYNDROME, my first major non-fiction book being published by Random House India in a few months. As mentioned earlier, I have chosen not to offer any sneak peeks, previews or sample chapters from this book, unlike all my earlier titles. In fact, I’m not saying a word about this book until it’s released! You’ll just have to wait and see what it’s about.

SLAYER OF KAMSA
As outlined in my Epic India Library plan, my Mba Series will run in parallel with the Krishna Coriolis. While my Mba will be available exclusively via this website, the Krishna Coriolis series will be on bookshelves across India, thanks to HarperCollins India, the publishers! The first book, SLAYER OF KAMSA, will be out in stores before the end of 2010. The series is an action-packed retelling of the life and adventures of Lord Krishna from before his birth until after his death on the mortal plane, written in a narrative style suitable for Young Adult readers. The Krishna books will be much shorter than the Ramayana Series books and written in a far more compact and thrilling narrative style. SLAYER OF KAMSA will be followed soon after by DANCE OF GOVINDA. These first two books in the series will follow Krishna’s story from before his birth until the day he confronts and kills Kamsa. I’ll post excerpts as well as the cover design here sometime in August. So don’t forget to check back!

SONS OF SITA
Delayed but not forgotten! My seemingly interminable revisions are finally approaching an end. As I’ve mentioned earlier, after considerable thought, I decided to cancel mass market publication of Vengeance of Ravana, extract a substantial portion of that book (VoR) and add it to the manuscript of SoS. That required a fair amount of revision and rewriting, hence the delay. Many of you have pre-ordered copies of SoS and have been waiting eagerly for them. Once again, apologies for the delay and thanks for your patience. SONS OF SITA will be available in its signed limited AKB Books Edition in August. For those of you who have been asking, there will be a few copies of VENGEANCE OF RAVANA also available. Please note that I’m unable to inform each person individually by email, so you will have to keep in touch with this website for further updates.

PRINCE OF AYODHYA, the Graphic Novel
The first volume of my long-awaited graphic novel adaptation of my Ramayana Series, written by me and illustrated by Argentinian artist Enrique (Quique) Alcatena is ready to enter the publication pipeline. Those of you who have seen sample artwork from this comic or have been following its development for the past several years will be aware how much work and patience has gone into its creation. I will confirm publication dates in a month or two, once I know for sure.

TEN KINGS
My first historical battle epic, TEN KINGS based on the Dasarajna incident in the Rig Veda, has been bought by new imprint Amaryllis Books in a very good deal. Thanks to Jay and Priya of Jacaranda, and Sanjana Roy Choudhury, Chief Editor of Amaryllis! TEN KINGS will also be my first book published in Hindi and other Indian languages. The book is currently scheduled for mass market publication in January 2011. If you thought my Ramayana Series was good, and if you think my Krishna books are action-packed and fast-paced, then just wait until you read TEN KINGS. It’s by far my best book ever. A great story, a magnificent battle epic, and a historic saga of the founding of the Bharata nation.

THE KALI QUARTET
A BLOOD RED SAREE opens my first contemporary fiction series, The Kali Quartet. This is a global thriller featuring three strong women protagonists who are caught up in a major financial conspiracy involving financial institutions secretly profiting from human trafficking. This is likely to be my next internationally published series as well and currently, my agents are fielding offers from Indian publishers for subcontinental rights. I’ll update when I know more, but look at this as my next major work for the next few years, now that my Ramayana Series, Mba, Krishna Series are all complete and in the publication pipeline. It’s also, in my humble opinion, my best work ever!

More news and updates every month from now on…

The 7th Mandala of the Rig Veda (quoted above) tells us of a great and terrible war called Dasarajna: The Battle of Ten Kings. In that legendary conflict, ten major tribal chiefs (kings) of the ancient world sought to displace and destroy Raja Sudas of the Bharata tribe.

The ten kings were supported by numerous individual champions and smaller forces, and were instigated by the great seer Vishwamitra. Many of them were allies of Raja Sudas and traded with the Bharatas and were friendly with them. But that fateful day, they turned against Sudas and his small but strong tribe of Bharatas, surrounded them with forces so superior that Sudas could have no chance of survival.

Their intention was to destroy Sudas and the Bharatas, take them as dasyas (slaves) and divide the Bharata lands and possessions as spoils of war. One day, out of the blue, their great army assembled on the banks of the Parusni river (present day Ravi in the Punjab region) and challenged Raja Sudas.

Vastly outnumbered, outmatched, and outplanned, Sudas should logically have surrendered. But he knew he had done nothing wrong, and being a righteous king, with the support of his people who loved him and respected his leadership, kindness and generosity, he chose to fight.

He was also supported by the spiritual mentorship of his guru, the legendary Vashishta.

And so, upon a stormy day by the banks of the Ravi, the battle was fought.

Legend tells us that in fact, Sudas might well have been Raja Bharat himself, son of Dushyant and Shakuntala, grandson of Vishwamitra.

The Rig Veda tells us that against all odds, Raja Sudas of the Bharatas (hence Bharata-Raja) fought that day against the Ten Kings…and won. The battle was impossible, the victory a miracle. The Rig Veda also tells us that the devas themselves watched from above as the battle progressed, and due to the moral superiority of Raja Sudas, Lord Indra chose to support the Bharatas.

Not only did Sudas and the Bharatas win, they routed the enemy in a massacre that was aided by nature itself, when the river and weather came to their aid. Was it Indra himself or merely a brilliant battle strategy by Raja Sudas? Either way, the Bharatas won the day. And as a result they became the dominant tribe of the Indian sub-continent.

Later, Raja Sudas’s descendants split into the Puru and Kuru lines, and waged another great war for Arya supremacy: the Mahabharata yuddh.

In a way, DASARAJNA (Battle of Ten Kings) was the turning point in the itihasa of the sub-continent.

Because it was by winning that war that King Sudas Bharata established his tribe as the ruling tribe of this part of the world.

And it is in his honour that all people of the sub-continent came to be known in time as Bharatas.

That story has never been before been told in all its glorious detail. Indeed, while the Rig Veda tells us some details of the war and its aftermath, very little is known about why the war began, how it became inevitable, and so on.

It’s a rousing tale filled with intrigues, conspiracies, back-stabbing, fierce erotic encounters, brutal court politics, family conflicts, and race against time in the hours before the battle. All the enemies and allies who will face one another on the battlefield are seen in the first half of the novel, playing their shrewd politics and pretenses in the court of Raja Sudas, pretending to be his allies, his friends, his neighbours, well-wishers, advisers, while secretly plotting and preparing to go to war against him. The reason they do this is because they intend to destroy his kingdom from within first – and if that fails, their armies are already assembled and waiting at the boundary of his kingdom, ready to invade. And as the story progresses and Sudas stands firm to his principles – his dharma – they all desert him, one by one, and go to join the other side, until finally Ten Kings stand against him, outnumbering his force more than ten times.

Leading and instigating them is Anu, the longtime arch-enemy of Sudas and the Bharatas, and Anu’s spiritual adviser, none other than the legendary brahmarishi Vishwamitra (of Ramayana fame). Vishwamitra has an old history of enmity with Sudas’ own adviser, Vashishta, and has an axe to grind by instigating this attack on Sudas and the Bharatas.

DASARAJNA is based on events described in the Rig Veda and confirmed by historians and archaelogists as being a true story. It is the seminal tale of the great battle that established the Bharata nation in the sub-continent which is present day India.

TEN KINGS will be published in English and Indian languages by Amaryllis Books, an imprint of Manjul Publishing, in early 2011.

The best thing about it is that you don’t need to pay in advance to place a request. That’s why it’s called a Request and not an Order. Even if you already have my bank details, please DO NOT pay or transfer money for any book. That’s why I haven’t mentioned any prices either.

Once each book is printed and copies are ready to despatch, you will be contacted and informed of all necessary details such as price, etc. At that point, you can choose whether to buy it or not, change your delivery details, ask for more than one copy, etc.

Unlike previous AKB BOOKS, these titles will NOT be personalized. That means that when I sign each copy, I will not be able to address it to you or anyone else by name. It will only be signed by me.

Right now, all you need to do is fill up the Request Form, providing all the details correctly as of this point in time, and selecting the titles you are interested in getting – you can always change your mind and details later. This form is just a way to Book your copy of each of these AKB BOOKS Limited Editions so I know roughly how many copies of each one to order from the printer.

And you don’t actually have to pay even a rupee in advance!

Isn’t that cool? Well, what are you waiting for then? Go for it!

Click here to go to the Request A Book page.

My long-awaited Mahabharata retelling is facing cancellation. Support it by voting in this online poll! Please be honest. There is no ‘right’ answer! To know what voting for these four options would achieve, read the explanation below…

UPDATED: I shall be printing the Mba regardless of the votes now. However, this means that there will be NO bookstore edition as yet of the series, and perhaps no such edition in future as well. The only way to get a copy of my Mahabharata retelling (Mba) is to visit the Request A Book Page and place a request without having to pay a rupee in advance!

NOTE: Since some of you have asked, I’ll explain briefly what these options mean:
Option#1: If I get 1,000 readers willing to pre-order (and pay) in advance, I can print and sell the whole series myself.
Option#2: If I get 2,500 readers interested in buying it, I can offer copies of the first book via this website – but if much less than 2,500 actually buy, there will be no further books in the series.
Option#3: If 25,000 readers are willing to buy the first book soon after it reaches bookstores, it will be possible to release a mass market edition.
Option#4: The series stays cancelled. No publisher can issue such large print runs of ten massive volumes and keep them in stock nor will bookstores keep the books on shelves for years (until the full series is published) in hopes of readers coming in someday and buying copies.

After considering reader feedback to the limited signed AKB BOOKS edition of Vengeance of Ravana I felt it was best to cancel mass market publication of the book and have requested my editors at Penguin accordingly. They have been supportive as always, and I’m very grateful for that.

I’ve taken a part of the text of Vengeance of Ravana and added it to the text of Sons of Sita, merging them into one final book, which I plan to submit to Penguin for publication.

This will be the 7th and final book of the Ramayana Series (R), and will most likely be called Sons of Sita: Book 7 of The Ramayana Series.

PS: Those of you who have ordered the AKB Books Limited Signed edition of Sons of Sita will receive this version, and this is the reason for its long delay. In my opinion, the book now rocks big-time and is a truly fitting end to the series…thanks to your input!

This is just to let you know what’s happening. I’ll post a longer explanation here once I’m done with the revisions, which, let me add, will not be for another month.

This also means that those of you who bought the AKB BOOKS limited signed editions, hardcover as well as paperback, of Vengeance of Ravana, now have the only copies of that version of the text in existence. That version will never be published and distributed in stores now, so hold on to your copies and who knows, they might actually be worth something someday!

This is the final cover for my ‘Mumbai Noir’ collection. The next title from AKB Books. Again, as with the previous AKB Books titles, this will also be a limited signed edition available only through online orders via this website. It contains the complete original text of my first three crime novels (also my only three crime novels published in print editions, since Bad Karma was published only as an online novel). They’re short novels, almost novellas, so the omnibus is less than 500 pages, but as a bonus I’ve written a long essay on Indian Crime Fiction as well as notes on the writing and publication of the books.

Click on the image to read the back cover blurb. As the title of this blog post says, these three slim novels were hailed at the time (1993) as ‘the first crime novels in English by an Indian author’. Were they really? To know that and much else, you’ll have to wait and read the introductory essay.

Meanwhile, feast your eyes on that beautiful cover design by the very talented Chandan Crasta, who also takes credit for that very evocative graveyard photograph and many other equally mesmerizing pics.

As you know, AKB Books isn’t a trade publisher (not yet at least), just a private imprint through which I offer limited edition signed copies of a select few of my books. Some, like VORTAL:SHOCKWAVE aren’t available anywhere else except directly from this website. So this is quite literally your only chance to get a copy of the book.

To know more about the book, read excerpts or to place your order visit the AKB Books Order Page.