Complex ideas tied with simple writing. Review on The Immortals Of Meluha - Amish Tripathi

In this time when cheesy love stories being dished out every day by new authors, Amish’s choice of genre - historical fiction for his first book is refreshing. Being the first book of the trilogy, Immortals of Meluha starts off with the very beginning of Shiva’s journey.

Shiva is a simple man who leads his tribe and enjoys marijuana too. Tired of fighting with the rival tribe he decides to change the fate of his people and embarks on a journey to Meluha – a land unknown to him. A mysterious place which will either will make or break the future of his people.

Set in this interesting premise, the book does keep you engaged. The writing is extremely simple and in many ways, I feel that is a plus point. Telling a story can be a daunting task, Amish manages to do it effortlessly. In the process, he manages to build a strong character graph for Shiva.

Shiva, like any great leader is concerned about his people. He stands for justice , can’t stand a lie even manages to have a sense of humor, but he is the man with the blue throat. He is destined for bigger things, the unshakeable belief of Suryavanshis touches his heart and he decides to fight with and for them against the chandravanshis.

I loved that initially he is so reluctant to accept that he is the one who will change everything. He feels uncomfortable when people bow down before him. Slowly, as he travels across the kingdom he realizes what he needs to do and begins to accept his fate. How the author has done this is quite commendable.

During the various travels, he happens to meet Sati, the girl whom he falls for the moment he sees her. Sati is portrayed to be this strong, independent woman who can beat any man on her day. Absolutely loved her characterization and how her relationship is built with Shiva. She being the daughter of the king of the Suryavanshis and the king trying everything to make Shiva be with her is, you know, filmy?

What I also liked is that how the author has taken things associated with Shiva and ancient India like the blue throat, parvati, dancing, ganesha, somras and everything alike and has given it quite a new spin to it. He even manages to use various characters from different stories you heard as a kid and gels them into the story.

Shiva manages to form a special bond with so many people along his journey. They are built beautifully and Shiva always manages to win their heart. There is his loyal friend Veerbhadra with whom he shares majirwana and even uses words like “Dammit”. Ayurvati, a doctor who was the first one to discover his blue throat. There is Nandi from Meluha who is completely devoted to Shiva.  There is one character with whom I was particularly impressed, Parvatheshwar – the army general of the Suryavanshis who is only person in the book who does not believe in the legend of Shiva. I am so glad that a character like him was there.

Foreshadowing is used in full force in the form of Vasudevs. Shiva goes to them when in trouble. They can talk to him in select temples. They guide him, give him advice and leave hints for the readers. I especially like the one why leaves are green.

Coming to the sub plots, there are just too many of them. There is just too much of action going on. I wonder how as to someone can get so many ideas? But, if there were only a few central ideas then it would have been a much better reading experience.

Conflict is very important to any story, here there are conflicts. Social commentary is at its very best. Suryavanshis and Chandravanshis are two sides of the same coin but who is right? They have conflicting ideologies, belief systems and they both falter. This can be interpreted in quite a lot of different ways and is definitely food for thought.

I did have a few problems with the book. Firstly, I had a real tough time imaging a few things described. While some of the descriptions like how the city of Mehula is, the rivers were spectacular, the other parts were begging for attention.  There wasn’t enough for me to go to that time and place, I just couldn’t. The war scenes are just all over the place and one point I got tired of them.  The language used by Shiva was sometimes hard to digest and when he dances in front of Sati for the first time, no one notices his blue throat. The complex ideas, imagination wow you but somewhere you feel that the potential of the ideas was not utilized fully. Still, this is a good read and I definitely would recommend it for the sheer brilliance of the concepts that are explored in it.