Plot Summary – Will Ram defeat the ruthless and fiendish Raavan, constrained as he is by the laws of Dharma? Will Lanka burn to a cinder or fight back like a cornered tiger? Will the terrible costs of war be worth the victory?

★

Reading this book made me wonder if I had enjoyed Amish’s books because I didn’t have exposure to better literature. I cannot litigate that without re-reading his older books but I have to say that this was one of my worst reading experiences. I did not have a good time reading this at all. This is a complete assassination of not only the plot and characters of the Indian epic but also the development of his own versions of these characters in his last 3 books. The characters talk like modern teenagers, they quote Plato and other Greek philosophers, and they talk about protecting India which didn’t exist until the 1600s at least, much less in 3400 BCE. Amish is more interested in building his literary universe and coming up with pseudoscientific explanations for MYTHOLOGY rather than coming up with a coherent story or emotionally complex characters. It is never in doubt what Ram will do because he always does the ‘right’ thing but that’s not what makes him interesting as a character. This was explored very well in his solo book but that character seems to be missing in this one. He’s forgotten Ram as a complex protagonist and turned him into a plot device. Sita and Raavan take the backseat as well in this book. Hanuman, Bharat and a bunch of side characters then become the crux of the story, which would be great if any of them were unique or had any differences but they are all written the same way. The random rants in the book about capitalism, the overproduction of the elites and architecture are so out of place in what is already a convoluted story. The war tactics and battle is very interesting but it is handled so poorly and so less time is spent with it that the reader would not be blamed for forgetting its even happening. I was very very underwhelmed by this book. I am not looking forward to the final part.