ASURA

ASURA - Tale of the Vanquished

By Anand Neelakandan

BOOK REVIEW

“Every tale has two sides”, they say. One of the victor’s and the other of the vanquished; That is, if someone survives from the vanquished group to convey their version of the story to the future generations.

If the loser camp is decimated completely (which usually is the case), then the story becomes simple, for there is only one version available for storytelling.

This applies to every possible story in the world, be it the LTTE war for eelam or the numerous wars waged by the USA against Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, etc. These are of recent times. Lets roll back the time machine to millennia and aeons back.

The author has picked up RAMAYANA - one of the two defining legendary mythological epics of India; the other one being Mahabharata.

And he brilliantly chooses Ravana as one of the main protagonists. Its indeed refreshing and breathtaking to hear the same story unravel through Ravana’s eyes and more importantly through Bhadra’s - a common folk in the asura camp.

What comes to my mind, when I think of Ramayana, is the boring magical drama of throwing designed and crafted clubs, spears, arrows that shower special effects of varying degree and kaleidoscopic colors. But the impressive author’s narration willingly erased every element of mythological magic and made it look completely realistic.

The stereotypical portrayal of Devas as good and Asuras as bad has been brilliantly averted. In fact, he goes on to glorify the asura clan and shows how superior, it was, to Deva culture. How hard work and determination in the Asura camp is enough to progress you to the next level, whereas the same qualities in the Deva camp, will fetch you nothing unless you are a high born by the accident of birth!

The author has done a magnificent job of building Ravana’s character poignantly through various cruel and intimate incidents equally and permits us to walk into the ten heads of Ravana and make us think and analyze the deeds of Ravana for and by ourselves.

The deft comparison of the ten faces of Ravana to the ten base emotions (anger, pride, jealousy, happiness, sadness, fear, selfishness, passion, ambition, intellect) of a human being is possibly the masterpiece, which makes Ravana, a more complete man than Rama, who is simply seen as God.

I also loved the way, how he incorporated various mythical characters like Mahabali, parasuram into this tale. Also, Prahastha, Maricha, Kumbakarna, vibishna, Bali, Meghanada, Mandothari all add various flavors to the story.

And the reason to abduct Sita to Lanka, which ultimately brought out his downfall, what a plot twist, you were!

He also manages to swell our eyes with tears, at last, as Ravana, the perfect villain, the gruesome Rakchasa, is devoured by men, God and beasts alike into pieces. 

In a way, he doesn't overtly glorify Ravana. He does points out his shortcomings, his mistakes, his sins, his ambitions, his foolishness through a bilateral narration via Ravana and Bhadra.

In the end, he gives us a grand final picture of what Ravana and Rama stood for and allows us to be the judge and choose our hero and villain in this epic tale.

The author has deftly attacked the rigid caste system and the notorious untouchability and the misery of being a low caste, which deeply convicts his social concern for the still prevailing malaise in our country.

On comparing the Asuras and the devas, their skin color, race, the position of women in their society, the practices in the kingdom, some things stroke and questioned my nerves;

“Why India is a land of diversity and 

Why there is a huge bridge between the North and south Indians?”

“Why I could relate the society I live in now to the erstwhile Asura society?”

and

“Why Ravana needs to be celebrated than his counterpart!”

But at the end of the day, everything could be or could not!

For these are stories, of which the Victor’s become legends and myths.

This will go down as one of the best fiction, I have read, ever.