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Mythbreaker's Reviews > Ajaya: Roll of the Dice
Ajaya: Roll of the Dice (Epic of the Kaurava Clan, #1)
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What does it mean to write a novel on a well-known epic from the perspective of the antagonist? Does it mean to change the story completely from blue to orange to prove the said antagonist isn't bad? Or does it mean, sticking to the plot as honestly as possible but provide an alternate perspective to the same? This is something which most authors fail to grasp. Anand Neelakantan, sadly is one of them.
It is difficult to define "facts" from Mahabharata to a common reader. On one hand, there is the canonical Sanskrit manuscripts which Neelakantan categorically dismisses as Brahmanical propaganda, overlooking their historicity completely. Then there are the subaltern versions (which are later compositions IMO), which he embraces as "more authentic" as they are composed by "lower castes and tribes". And thereby lies the basic foundational error with his book. Anand Neelakantan sees the entire epic of near 100K verses through the uni-dimensional prism of Caste.
Imagine a feminist author writing a novel on Mahabharata, where she completely twists the storyline, and changes the plot to make all men as pathetic villains and all women as saintly victims. How would that fair? No doubt patriarchy is a common theme in Mahabharata, but what if someone reduces the whole epic into a one-shaded Masculine Gender vs Feminine Gender narrative, and vilifies Krishna, Pandavas, Karna, Kauravas as pathetic perverts to prop up the women as saints? It would be extremely problematic, right? It is the same with this novel as well, only the binary in this case is not Man vs Woman, but Upper Caste vs Lower Caste.
To be honest, the premise of Ajaya was very interesting. It is not always that we get to read a book from the perspective of Duryodhan, that also by a reasonably good author like Anand Neelakanatan. But the exercise proves to be futile because of the exceedingly biased treatment of the characters. This is ironic, because, Neelakantan accuses the general renditions of Mahabharata being one-sidedly partial towards Pandavas and unfair to Duryodhan. He shows a similar one-sided approach in his own book as well. The only difference is, his bias is directed towards Duryodhan.
Mahabharata is a very complex story, where no one is complete black or white. Vyasa's Duryodhan has some good traits, Pandavas have some vices. Contrary to what Neelakantan suggests, the greyness is clear to anyone who would read the epic from an unabridged source. I wanted to read the same story but from a fresh perspective through the eyes of Duryodhan. His dilemmas, his thoughts, how he justified himself to his own conscience, his insecurities, his child-like demands a times (during Ghosha Yatra), why he hated the Pandavas so much, etc. But that is not what we get here.
In this book, Duryodhan is a flawless, white saint fighting for the lower rung of the society. And Krishna and Pandavas are absolute pathetic villains, the quintessential "Upper Caste"who loot and oppress the lowborns. In order to establish this narrative, Neelakantan twists and changes plotline, invents new situations and makes up events to his heart's content.
I am all for a "a different perspective" and "reading between the lines", after all creative liberties are must for fictional renditions. But to this extent? This blatant distortion of the story makes one question that does one really have to pull down Pandavas with imaginary situations to make Duryodhan a hero? And if that is the case, and if the author has to "change" the plotline so much to make Duryodhan a hero, then how much heroic was he in the first place?
Ajaya had potential. But it becomes a victim to its author's overwhelming bias against Krishna, and his one-dimensional view of the epic. This book might appear to be "explosive" and "eye-opening" for those who have surface-level knowledge of Mahabharata, courtesy TV serials and a few abridged books from here and there. But for those who have read and studied the epic in its unabridged form, like the Critical Edition, etc, Ajaya will appear to be a poorly researched attempt to support Inversion Theory.
The deviations and bias notwithstanding, I am going with 3 stars solely because of the writing skills. Neelakantan is a good writer, and knows how to write a page-turner.
3 stars only for that.
It is difficult to define "facts" from Mahabharata to a common reader. On one hand, there is the canonical Sanskrit manuscripts which Neelakantan categorically dismisses as Brahmanical propaganda, overlooking their historicity completely. Then there are the subaltern versions (which are later compositions IMO), which he embraces as "more authentic" as they are composed by "lower castes and tribes". And thereby lies the basic foundational error with his book. Anand Neelakantan sees the entire epic of near 100K verses through the uni-dimensional prism of Caste.
Imagine a feminist author writing a novel on Mahabharata, where she completely twists the storyline, and changes the plot to make all men as pathetic villains and all women as saintly victims. How would that fair? No doubt patriarchy is a common theme in Mahabharata, but what if someone reduces the whole epic into a one-shaded Masculine Gender vs Feminine Gender narrative, and vilifies Krishna, Pandavas, Karna, Kauravas as pathetic perverts to prop up the women as saints? It would be extremely problematic, right? It is the same with this novel as well, only the binary in this case is not Man vs Woman, but Upper Caste vs Lower Caste.
To be honest, the premise of Ajaya was very interesting. It is not always that we get to read a book from the perspective of Duryodhan, that also by a reasonably good author like Anand Neelakanatan. But the exercise proves to be futile because of the exceedingly biased treatment of the characters. This is ironic, because, Neelakantan accuses the general renditions of Mahabharata being one-sidedly partial towards Pandavas and unfair to Duryodhan. He shows a similar one-sided approach in his own book as well. The only difference is, his bias is directed towards Duryodhan.
Mahabharata is a very complex story, where no one is complete black or white. Vyasa's Duryodhan has some good traits, Pandavas have some vices. Contrary to what Neelakantan suggests, the greyness is clear to anyone who would read the epic from an unabridged source. I wanted to read the same story but from a fresh perspective through the eyes of Duryodhan. His dilemmas, his thoughts, how he justified himself to his own conscience, his insecurities, his child-like demands a times (during Ghosha Yatra), why he hated the Pandavas so much, etc. But that is not what we get here.
In this book, Duryodhan is a flawless, white saint fighting for the lower rung of the society. And Krishna and Pandavas are absolute pathetic villains, the quintessential "Upper Caste"who loot and oppress the lowborns. In order to establish this narrative, Neelakantan twists and changes plotline, invents new situations and makes up events to his heart's content.
I am all for a "a different perspective" and "reading between the lines", after all creative liberties are must for fictional renditions. But to this extent? This blatant distortion of the story makes one question that does one really have to pull down Pandavas with imaginary situations to make Duryodhan a hero? And if that is the case, and if the author has to "change" the plotline so much to make Duryodhan a hero, then how much heroic was he in the first place?
Ajaya had potential. But it becomes a victim to its author's overwhelming bias against Krishna, and his one-dimensional view of the epic. This book might appear to be "explosive" and "eye-opening" for those who have surface-level knowledge of Mahabharata, courtesy TV serials and a few abridged books from here and there. But for those who have read and studied the epic in its unabridged form, like the Critical Edition, etc, Ajaya will appear to be a poorly researched attempt to support Inversion Theory.
The deviations and bias notwithstanding, I am going with 3 stars solely because of the writing skills. Neelakantan is a good writer, and knows how to write a page-turner.
3 stars only for that.
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Reading Progress
Finished Reading
November 25, 2018
– Shelved
