Mrityunjay by Shivaji Sawant

Yesterday, I completed reading ‘Mrityunjay’ by Shivaji Sawant. The book is written in Marathi language and the same is translated to Malayalam by Dr. PK Chandran and Dr. TR Jayasree.

Mrityunjay is a beautiful piece of work carved from the epic Mahabharata. It gave me a golden chance to know more about the prominent character of Karna in Mahabharata. Through this book, the entire story of Mahabharata is told from the perspectives of Karna and the various other characters that were close to Karna in the epic.

I have heard a lot about the character Karna before reading this book itself. But I started reading this book with the intention of knowing the writer’s approach when telling us a well known story mainly through Karna. There have been some notable works in Malayalam like” Randamoozham” and “Ini Njan urangatte” which could also be counted as a similar kind of approach. In Randamoozham, MT was focusing the character of Bhima while in Ini njan urangatte, PK Baakrishnan was focusing the character of Droupati. Both of these writers tried to fill up the silent moments in the epic by the focused character’s thoughts and I should say that they were successful in their venture. Here in Mrityunjay also, approach was the same and as per me, the writer was successful in it.

I never had a chance to read Mahabharatha in its original form but I have read many books written based on that epic. From all those, I always had a conception that the epic is full of conflicts between Dharma and Adharma.  In many instances, it is the reader’s choice to determine what is right and what is wrong. But we also fail in most of the instances to determine as the situations would be much complicated and those situations would really trap us in dilemmas. But it is always said that the answers are there in the epic itself for all of those complicated problems but it is us who have to find them. We must remember the quote about the epic here… “Whatever is here, is found elsewhere. But what is not here, is nowhere else”.  Oh… I am losing my track… So, what I intended to say is; through the book Mrityunjay, the writer is trying to have a close look at the dilemmas faced by the character Karna from his birth to death. By doing this, writer is making an attempt to find out the reasons for the decisions that Karna had taken in all those complicated situations he had faced.

We could consider that the character of Karna is the one whom Vyasa has given the most complicated situations to face in the epic. Even though he was the eldest of Pandava, he was brought up as a son of ordinary chariot rider. And all his life he had been haunted by the inequalities of social hierarchy. He was even getting insulted roughly by Bhishma, Drona and Droupati on various occasions. Although Karna becomes the master of Dhanurveda and all martial arts, nobody was ready to agree to it because of his undignified birth. Later, just before the Kurukshetra war, Krishna reveals the truth to Karna about his birth that he is the eldest of Pandava; the first son of Kunti; the result of a boon given to Kunti by the Sage Durvasa. But due to various obligations in the past life mainly because of his friendship with Duryodana, Karna takes the decision to be in the side of Kaurava and take part in the war.

As we can see, Karna is the one like Bhishma who never gave up his determined mind at any persuading occasions. He strongly held his acts according to the morals he followed and he always acted according to the words he bounded with.  We could see that in various occasions. To keep his word that nobody would go from his door empty handed, he gave away his armor and earrings to Indra even though he is aware that it might have serious consequences in the upcoming war. Also, he was never ready to forget his friendship with Duryodana even though he is having doubts about the motives of Duryodana and shown his disagreement many times. During the war, he dutifully kept the word that he had given to Kunti that he won’t kill any Pandava other than Arjuna. In this book, all of those incidents are detailed so heart touchingly.

In Mrityunjay, there were many occasions where the writer is describing about Karna’s attraction to Sun and his Sun-worship. I felt these narrations have dragged me a little while reading the book. This might be because that I am not convinced about the same. As many of us believe, I also have an impression that the supernatural and superstitious narrations in Mahabharata epic are filled in it on a later stage. Even the part of Bhagavad Gita might have written on a later stage by somebody and added it to Mahabharata.

So, I am concluding it here. Mrityunjay is a book that must be read. You will surely get a feeling of successfully completing a long journey after reading the same.

So long folks…

-Akhil Stanly

Mattathi by Sara Joseph

Mattathi - A good work from Sara Joseph.

I read this novel some time ago. Somehow this is the one which came in to my mind when I thought of writing about a book today. I remember that I was literally crying after finishing the last page of this book. I still remember most of the characters through them the writer told us a really touching social story. 

The story mostly deals with the life of the main character Loosy with her aunt Brijita. Loosy was an unwanted child and was abandoned by her mother in her childhood itself. Her aunt Brijita was unmarried and she decided to bring up Loosy even though her family shown their reluctance since the child was a girl. But moving forward, we may get a notion like she brought her up only to look after her or to get the things done for her in the eve of her life. Brijita was never ready to give up anything for Loosy and she was never a mother to her. Yet, Loosy loved Brijita and was ready to accept anything happily.

By describing various phases of life of Loosy, the writer was actually trying to bring our notice to such lives in our society. We always ignore them deliberately even though we have sympathy. Sara Joseph has got a good talent in describing the most sorrowful matters with humor. In some of the lines in the book, I wept and laughed together. I don't know how to state it here. But it was true that it made me to do so. 

As a girl, Loosy also has her own wishes, love, desire to learn and will for freedom but each one of them were getting plucked from the root itself. She was not able to achieve anything. Even Brijita did not try to understand Loosy. In this novel, the writer also depicts one more female character named Cheru who also suffers from the inequalities and shatter our hearts because of her horrible fate at the end. I felt very sorry for Loosy and Cheru. It was so realistic to read this book. Even though I felt angry on Brijita during times when she used to scold and beat Loosy, It was very sad when she died suddenly(all of the family members were trying to exploit the situation when she died and avoided Loosy for the money by heir). 

I was really eager to see a happy ending of the story. A happy life for Loosy… But Sara Joseph made me weep. I wanted to write a lot about this. But the thoughts are coming without any sequence. Yes it is truth. In real life, most of the character’s similar to that of Loosy’s are having the same fate… no reason for any kind of hope. At least Celina (A cousin of Loosy) could have helped her. But… She was just another face of a modern girl. At last, Loosy was forced herself to take up the job of washing cloths as a way to go on with her life. The writer ends the story saying that the helpless people carrying dirt in their minds calls for Loosy and she extends her hand offering to clear them all.

If we are start reading this kind of books, we were forced to believe in fate, Isn't it?

Brijita’s last moments were really teaching something. We would get to know the importance of somebody in our life only at the end of it and if we could do something for anybody who is in real need, we should not wait for it until we could not do it. If Brijita was a little longsighted, Loosy’s future would not have ended up like this. The last expressions of Brijita and her eyes to the kitchen must have been searching for Loosy…But it was too late…

A child who is happen to born as a female have got many things to fear from our society. They have many things to sacrifice for their peaceful life in the society. Yet, their life wont be peaceful. Our society has somehow developed a negative impact on female lives which should get rectified soon. No female should feel insecure anywhere. I can see things are changing now. Let us hope for a better world for men and women together.

I Strongly recommend you to read this book. So long...

- Akhil Stanly

Just beginning...

Today, all of a sudden I decided to start writing blogs. It took a long time to have all the pieces in their places. Now I can start as I have a vision and motive for writing it. As the English man in the book "Alchemist" laments and determines "I should have started purifying the lead long before... time is there... at least I can start now..."
Let me be clear. I will write only about the books that I get a chance to read. Something like a review. It would purely contain my own notions and perceptions about that book. If it can be helpful to others, I would be very delighted.
I just want to introduce myself as this introduction may help others give an idea about the type of books that I usually read. I am a Keralite. A Malayali. And I prefer to read the literary works of Malayalam writers mostly. I believe that if somebody wants to grab and absorb a work in its complete essence, it should be read in the language in which it is written and that language should be well known to the reader. I also had many opportunities to read various other language books which were translated to English and Malayalam. In those, some translations were comparatively good and others made me weep.
I always find pleasure in reading books written by the writers who actually plays with our mind. So whatever I write here would be the outcome of those mental orientations just after reading such a book. I also like to travel a lot hence I prefer to read the travelogues also.
I believe the above introduction is enough for now. We have a great time ahead to get properly acquainted with. So long guys...

-Akhil Stanly