A vanquished tribe

Author:    Anand Neelakantan

Publisher:   platinum Press.

ISBN: 978-93-817577-05-2

First time author Anand Neelakantan, treads the murky waters of telling the tale of the Ravana, here neither Rama nor Ravana are heroes, Ravana is the protagonist.

The book is a fiction based on the stock characters from Ramayana. The tale is narrated through the Ravana and Bhadra an asura who is positioned as the darker side of Ravana. Ravana is a wannabe idealistic hero, but in Anand’s tale he is neither the personification of evil as pictured by Tulsidas nor he is the well-educated non-Aryan leader of the Jain and Buddhist tales, neither is the heroic uddata nayaka of southern folklore, Ravana here appears as a whining, looser.

The story is well presented, and the book is quite difficult to put down. The last three chapters do drag a bit.

Over all a good book.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Anand…