Hindu/Indian Fiction?

[Jeffery D. Long]

I was very happy to see that Omkara endorsed Ashok Banker's Lord-of-the-Rings-esque adaptation of the Ramayana, as I also like it very much. I recommend his books highly. I read the Indian editions, having picked them up at a shop in Delhi.

[philosoraptor]

I'm a little suspicious of some of these re-tellings of the Ramayana. I saw one in a Barnes and Noble once that was supposed to be one such re-telling, and was completely turned off by the author casting Rama as an epic fantasy hero and completely discarding the theme of His divinity. This really misses the point on such a profound scale. I don't remember the author's name, but I recall that it was an Indian author.

I've seen some of these re-tellings by the likes of Kamala Subramaniam and some ISKCON authors, but have mostly stayed away on account of not liking abridged versions.

That being said, I really enjoyed C. Rajagopalachari's abridged version of the Mahabharata when I was in high school. His version of the Ramayanam was ok, but not as good imho.

I read one of Chitra Divakaruni's books many years ago - it was an anthology of short stories. I was particularly mortified by one story called "The Ultrasound" in which the main character, a non-brahmin female having married into a Bengali brahmin family, is upset that her in-laws want her to abort her first baby because it is not a son.

The problem I have with so many of these modern Indian authors is that traditional figures are invariably villains. You almost never see any noble souls unless they are people who somehow discarded their Hindu roots.

[Twilightdance]

author casting Rama as an epic fantasy hero and completely discarding the theme of His divinity

For those who are not Vaishnava, this may not be such a profound miss. On contrary it may allow the reader to focus on the story of the epic for a change and may find Ramayana has something more useful to offer than just being a praise for Rama - of which there are many.

[Viraja]

The problem I have with so many of these modern Indian authors is that traditional figures are invariably villains. You almost never see any noble souls unless they are people who somehow discarded their Hindu roots.

Is there a tendency among Indians in general to please masses belonging to other religions? For example, if we watch Indian movies closely, all those exalted helping and noble souls will be Muslims. There will be a huge attempt to sound like an advise to Hindus on avoiding religious bigotry. India and Hindus have been always very tolerant actually, why there is a need to please?

[philosoraptor]

For those who are not Vaishnava, this may not be such a profound miss. On contrary it may allow the reader to focus on the story of the epic for a change and may find Ramayana has something more useful to offer than just being a praise for Rama - of which there are many.

And that's the problem. There are still many who succumb to the misconception that Rama's divinity is just an incidental detail, and that the story has so much more to tell us. As someone who has read the unabridged original, I can say with confidence that this understanding is a misunderstanding of Valmiki's intent. The story reads like a clear exposition of sharanagati, and missing that point, the reader is left in the dark about the motivations of several main characters during key episodes.

[Banarasi]

Namaskaaram Webimpulse and sorry for reviving an old thread.

I think a modern thriller is Hunt for K . Since you know about Ramesh Menon, you may already know this but since I could not see other posts mentioning it, I do it here.( I do not know if it is the same Ramesh Menon who translated Ramayana). The background is of a CBI officer in the hunt for an assassin called K. I will not disclose the rest of the plot. It is in English, short and gripping.

Another is called Kadambari by Bana Bhatta. It is long and an english translation is available online

http://archive.org/stream/kadambario...arich_djvu.txt

One feature is that there are many stories within stories - A starts telling a story where a character B recites a story in which a character C recites a story...

The wikipedia link is here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kadambari

Hope these are interesting.

Jai Sitaram

Banarasi

[Banarasi]

Namaskaaram:

Re my last post, I am embarrassed to note that the Hunt for K is not as cracked up as i used to think it was (when i was an undergrad student) and has the same problems as the other works mentioned in this thread. A cursory glance at the google books page would reveal what I mean and the plot is not too deep either.

http://books.google.com/books/about/...d=gvOWtj1MWN0C


My apologies.

Jai Sitaram

[Asi]

Nine lives by William Dalrymple.

An excellent read. I think it's a good take on modern day spirituality in the indian subcontinent.

http://www.amazon.com/Nine-Lives-Sea.../dp/0307474461