Jaya : Mahabharat by Devdutt Pattanaik

Another book of myths and history based on the Hindu scripture Mahabharat.

This book is an interesting illustrative retelling of the stories Mahabharat. It strats from the beginning of the yagna by Janmejay and how he was told the story of his ancestors who made the similar mistakes and end up badly.

Devdutt has given a good account of the whole Mahabharat with some additional commentary which I assume is his own view.

The narrative is as lucid as it can be in a translation and the illustrations are very good. The writer has tried to include as many aspects or variations available around the world which is quite interesting. But in the end it lost being a simple précis translation of the epic while covering a large number of stories.

A person who has watched the tele-series Mahabharata can connect to all the narrated stories and it was given in the appendices as well as one of the sources. But it doesn’t belittle the efforts put by the author in finishing the book.

One common thought which reverberates through whole narrative is that whatever we do or say comes back to us and as long as we’re attached with it we’ll keep going through the whole cycle of life and death. Only the complete surrender to God can set us free from it.

If you’ve not heard the stories of Mahabharat and don’t have enough time to read the original text this is quite a good book to start with. But I’ll request all not to harbor any opinion by reading this book only otherwise you will end up with uncooked knowledge which will do more harm. Keep all your options open before coming to any conclusion because it is these prejudices which are the root causes of the all problems.

India: The Siege Within by M J Akbar

After a long time got a book written by a journalist on India's conditions before and after the Freedom.

The book was first published in 1984 and even after repeat prints Akbar refused to make any changes. There are few things that have changed a lot but there is still a lot to know the roots.

I really felt happy and sad together after finishing the book.

Happy that the book was full of information and cleared a lot of myths that I was having in my mind but never had an argument to back that up. Nehru being not so great leader was one of them.

I was sad because I realized that there are so many small things which are negligible in life but because of the personal belief and interest resulted in a disaster which could have  been avoided for sure and India would have been here at least 20 years back where it is currently today.

The narrative is fluent and the points are backed by references rather than being based on assumptions. Akbar’s non-biased tone was a big plus for the book as he was able to put the things together without being biased towards any prejudice whatsoever.

The book is a collection of facts and commentary on the socio-political conditions of India before and after the Freedom.

It talks about three events of Indian history Creation of Pakistan, Separation attempts for Punjab and Kashmir.

I’m not giving details here but one thing that I realized was that there is no really any reason to fight on the basis of Cast, Religion, Community, Nativity et al. It all ends in a disaster some way or the other and the people with the wrong intentions and belief will only benefitted from it and everybody else will remain with the memories that haunt for the lifetime.

There is no opinion like mob opinion. People are simple minded and it is very easy to fish in a turbulent water but the question that arises is why to fish at all. Let the people be what they are (simple) and the things will fall in place. Having the wrong belief and spreading the hatred against the non-believers is a crime and the worst part is that the wrong people never get punished for that. Its only the common people who end up paying extraordinary price.

Let there be knowledge and peace.

Book is a must read.