Tuesday 26 January 2016

Winds of Hastinapur- At a Glance

Winds of Hastinapur is a Mythological novel that deals with an idiosyncratic concept. Sharath Komarraju, the author has not taken up that old saga of Kauravas and Pandavas in fact, he has made it the base and has told the saga that very few knew but not much was mentioned.  It is the first part of the series. It talks about the start of Hastinapur. To be more precise, it illustrates about those ladies who were the pillars behind it and gave their sacrifices for the growth of the empire.


Cover : The cover of the book is really eye catching and will allure your mind to read it instantly. The cover has a fascinating color scheme.

Title: I believe nothing could have better then this title. It gives solace to your mind. So, the title 
 The Winds of Hastinapur' is really captivating.

Plot:  As stated before, it is a tale about the sacrifices of the women during the reign of Shantanu, the king of Hastinapur. The women talked in this book are Ganga and Satyavati. Ganga is the lady of the river  who  is cursed and sent on Earth, whereas, Satyavati happens to be the stepmother of the eighth son of Ganga who is popularly known as Bhishma.

Structure: The book is divided into two parts. It can be said that it has separate segments which can also be known as Novellas as they stand out separately. The first part deals with Ganga, the river maiden, who lives in Meru and her life their. Further, it delineates about her curse and the way she struggles in her life.
 
On the other hand, the next part deals with Satyavati who is a Fisher girl. This segment talks about her decision and the way she handles King Shantanu and the abandoned son of Ganga. This part also gives way to the other part of the series which The Rise of Hastinapur.

Themes: There major theme I noticed is of Sacrifice. It is not easy to sacrifice her own sons like Ganga did. It needs guts and lots of courage. Even Kali sacrificed her attraction towards Bhishma and married Shantanu. Though at times she regretted this decision yet it was all the game of fate and everything was pre- decided by the astrologers.

The other theme depicted in this book is trust. Ganga and Shantanu  were happy in their lives. But when Shantanu lost his patience Ganga's trust was broken so this way, this theme is highlighted though in not a grand way.

Characterization: Sharath has beautifully shown the character portrayal of the two ladies and even the King Shantanu. He has amazingly shown the royal blood, Shantanu, his attributes and his strature. Whereas Ganga is shown as a delicate, beautiful, caring and loving maiden. And even Kali shows traces of delicacy, beauty.

Style: The language used in the novellas is poetic and has complexity in it. It is simple at times and times it becomes complex. The variety of sentences makes it interesting. The descriptions are really mesmerising and soothing. Further the third person narration blended with first person makes it special.

My Observation:  I really loved the descriptions and they were simply fabulous. The character portrayal was an icing on the cake. To add more, the themes are pretty impressive. There were some syntactical errors which acted like a hastle otherwise, it is a great book. I would like my readers to read it because these days we are getting disconnected to our roots and this book will surely re- ignite that connection.

Availability: The book is available on amazon, flipkart, kindle and many other sites.

About the author: http://sharathkomarraju.com/



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