Book Review : The Forest of Stories

Title : The Forest of Stories
Author : Ashok K. Banker
Publisher : Westland
ISBN : 978-93-81626-37-5

I have always enjoyed reading the retellings of one of the greatest epics of the world – the Mahabharata. In keeping with this urge to experience diverse perspectives on the epic, how could I skip reading Ashok Banker’s take on this grand drama? Ashok K Banker has earned a repute of being one of the best in this particular genre with his engaging Ramayana series followed by the Krishna Coriolis Series.

‘The Forest of Stories’ by Ashok Banker is a bit like the groundwork before the actual magnum opus. The way Banker has presented the stories in fine detail makes one guess that this particular series is going to be a long one. In fact, if I have the correct information, there are 17 more books to follow ‘The Forest of Stories’!

Reading through this book, I realised that I am familiar with some of the stories that are narrated in it; however, many are completely new to me. As Banker rightly points out, all these stories interconnect at some point like small tributaries meeting and merging with other tributaries, finally draining into the main river.

This set of stories is narrated by Ugrasrava , son of Lomarsana. Ugrasrava is fondly called ‘Sauti’ because he is a ‘Suta’, the son of a Kshatriya father and a Brahmin mother. The epic begins when, after a long and strenuous journey, Sauti reaches Naimisha-van, where Kulapati  Shaunaka and his many acolytes practice their austere rituals in an ashram. It is the same place where the great historical Kurukshetra battle was actually fought and history was created. It is a pleasure for the ashramites and inhabitants of the forest to listen to the narration of Mahabharata from Sauti, as he had the privilege of listening to the recitation from the creator of the epic, Vyasa, himself. Surprisingly, Sauti’s audience expands every day and it is as though the entire Naimisha-van is listening, each tree representing a dead soul in the Kurukshetra war. They are curious about the events that led to the great war, which led to their demise.

Here Banker very beautifully explains and justifies the presence of these silent listeners by saying,  ”If there is one question that has always haunted the human mind, it is this: What is the point of living? What is our purpose here on earth? Why were we put here on this mortal planet? Is there a larger plan? All humans come back to the same question: Why are we here?

“It was a question that everyone hoped the great epic Mahabharata would answer. After all, it was called the Fifth Veda for good reason. It not only told a great tale, but illuminated the essence of the human condition through the events of that great tale. And no question was more essential to the human condition than knowing why one existed.”

‘The Forest of Stories’ presents an array of seven interesting stories that does not involve any of the main characters of the great battle.  There is the tale of Parashuram and his vow to cleanse the earth of the Kshatriyas not just once but 21 times. The story of Parikshat’s son – Janamajaya, who conducts a great yagna so that all snakes of the world including King Takshaka get engulfed in the flames of the yagna and get wiped off the face of earth, also finds a place. Then there is a story of Sage Bhrigu and his wife Puloma, which leads to the story of Dushyanta and Shakuntala. Except Parashuram’s and Shakuntala’s stories, the rest were completely new to me. And of all the tales presented in this book, the story of Parshuram definitely scores over the rest, riding high on the brilliant descriptive style of the author.

Banker has maintained the authenticity of the facts by adhering to Vyasa’s text very closely and has enhanced the overall effect by his signature flair for making scenes come alive in regal grandeur. Banker not just narrates the stories; rather, he adorns them beautifully with drama and action while keeping it simple and contemporary for the new generation. His linguistic skills are par excellence and it is a delightful experience to just fly on the beautiful words of the author to the enchanting world, unraveling the mysteries of the mythological era that he describes in the pages of this book.

If you ever get overwhelmed while reading various stories and meeting the innumerable characters entering and exiting the stage, do keep this in mind – “As you hear the stories unfold, their connections will become amply clear to your enlightened mind and you will enjoy the beauty of this great narrative of Sage Krishna Dweipayana Vyasa. For it is a masterpiece of itihas, containing all the devices of poetics and aesthetics employed in their finest grain.”

After reading this book, I now look forward to reading the rest of Ashok Banker’s ‘MBA series,’ and I am sure there are many more readers who are committed to do so too. It is also interesting to read how The Mahabharata became Banker’s MBA. So don’t miss it!

I am glad that this review appeared here : http://www.sparkthemagazine.com/?p=4058

Book Review : Jaya

Title : Jaya - An Illustrated Retelling of the Mahabharata

Author : Devdutt Pattanaik

Publisher : Penguin India

ISBN : 978-0-143-10425-4

A friend of mine gave 'Jaya' to me to read and going by the first instinct, I read the back cover of the book and what I read greatly intrigued me, fascinated me, captivated me and enthralled me, despite the fact that I have heard the story many times atleast in bits and pieces from different sources, watched almost every episode of the BR Chopra's serial by the same name on television, read it as a part of our school curriculum in one of the middle classes and later read some other interpretations of the story - as told by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni in 'Palace of Illusions' and the brilliant parallelism to the current scenario that Gurcharan Das drew in his 'Difficulty of Being Good'.

Without much ado, I think I should just copy the gist of this great epic as is shown on the back cover:

The Mahabharata is an ancient Hindu epic where:

A son renounces sex so that his old father can remarry

A daughter is a prize in an archery contest

A teacher demands half a kingdom as his tuition fee

A student is turned away because of his caste

A mother asks her sons to share a wife

A father curses his son-in-law to be old and impotent

A husband lets another man make his wife pregnant

A wife blindfolds herself to share her husband's blindness

A forest is destroyed for a new city

A family is divided over inheritance

A king gambles away his kingdom

A queen is forced to serve as a maid

A man is stripped of his manhood for a year

A woman is publicly disrobed

A war is fought where all rules are broken

A shift in sexuality secures victory

The vanquished go to paradise

The victors lose their children

The earth is bathed in blood

God is cursed

Until wisdom prevails

I do not feel the need to give even a small glimpse of the story here. The one of its kind epic, unmatched, unparalleled, abundant with all possible forms of emotions and feelings, very rightly lives up to the fame of 'what is here can be elsewhere, what isn't here cannot be anywhere else'. Such is the vastness of this epic. It has been a great research topic for many religious gurus, research community, warriors, businesspeople, sociologists and even after thousands of years since its inception, there is a lot that we all can learn from it. One of the significant parts of the epic, the discourse between Nara and Narayana - Arjun and God at the beginning of the battle - the Bhagvad Gita (presented as 'Song of the God' here), teaches the doctrine of life, the ultimate knowledge of being in the transient world.

Devdutt's book covers a wide range of plots and subplots in a very detailed manner while at the same time keeping it brief so that the main story line is not forgotten in the details of the subplots. Some of these short stories are very self contained and can be a good source of stories to read to children. Since Mahabharata has been written, translated and interpreted by many and in many different languages, there are many variations in the main story as well as the tertiary streams of stories that join the main saga. At the end of each chapter, the author has summarized some of these variations, cultural influences on the narrative and elaborated upon some specific portions even further.

Jaya is an extremely well written story presented systematically in 18 sections and 108 chapters maintaining just the right balance between detail and brevity. The readers will find many of their doubts getting answered as they go along, even the reason why this book is titled 'Jaya' and which victory is actually the one that is being referred to here. Weaving the tales from classical Sanskrit and regional and folk variations make it an enriching and enlightening reading experience. How can I forget mentioning the line illustrations by the author himself beautifully capturing the essence of the chapters - they work as the icing on the cake.

Some of the excerpts from the book which I really want to share here:

• Vyasa classified the hymns and created four collections - Rig, Yadur, Sama and Atharva. On completing this monumental task, Vyasa has this inexplicable urge to write a story, one that would convey the most abstract of Vedic truths to the simplest men in the farthest corners of the world in the most concrete of forms. The gods liked the idea and sent the elephant-headed Ganesha to serve as his scribe.

Ganesha said, "You must narrate without a pause." This would ensure that what Vyasa dictated was not adulterated by human prejudice.

"I will", said Vyasa, 'provided you write nothing unless it makes sense to you. This ensured that all that was written appealed to the divine.

• The war between Kauravas and Pandavas was about Dharma and not for justice. And dharma is not about justice, it is about empathy and wisdom. Dharma is not about defeating others, it is about conquering ourselves. Everybody wins in dharma. When the war at Kurukhsetra concluded even the Kauravas went to paradise.

• Neither the Pandavas nor the Kauravas learnt the lessons of - futility of rage and the value of forgiveness - something that ultimately cost the Kuru clan dearly.

• Story of Ram, Ramayana speaks of a model king and his model reign. The Mahabharata by contrast, is more about imperfect kings and their imperfect reigns. In the Ramayana, Vishnu upholds rules as Ram while in the Mahabharata, Vishnu changes rules as Krishna. In the Ramayana, God is king while in the Mahabharata, God is kingmaker.

• Krishna offers Arjuna two things : what he is and what he has. Arjun chooses what Krishna is. Duryodhana is happy with what Krishna has. This divide between him and his, me and mine, what one is and what one has, is the difference between seeking the soul and being satisfied with matter.