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A review by tbr_the_unconquered
Govinda by Krishna Udayasankar
2.0
When I first read the Mahabharata as a child, I wasn’t clear on why the story started at a place called Naimisha-Aranya (The forest of Naimisha). To my mind that craved only action movies, this was a minor diversion and one that needed to be quickly bypassed to reach that big daddy of all battle scenes. But slowly with every retelling and re-reading that I went through, the forest grew on me. It was only very recently that Ashok Banker gave it a befitting name – The forest of stories. You can draw out countless tales from this forest. Heroes, villains, gods and demons walk among these tales and it would make even the seasoned fantasy writers stare in wonderment at the seemingly endless treasure trove that stands before them. Needless to say, this seems to be the rage these days among young Indian writers too for everybody wants to try their hands at retelling mythology across varied genres from action to romance to family drama. Hunting between the stacks at my library on Saturday, I came across a new series where Krishna was an assassin sent to take revenge on the Asuras by the Devas(imagine Krishna as Liam Neeson : I will look for you, I will find you and I will kill you ! some assassin he would make eh ? ). Krishna Udayasankar is another entrant to this field who chooses a retelling of the epic steeped in palace intrigues, conspiracies and machinations with a special focus on the rock star god of the Hindu pantheon : Krishna.
One thing is set straight right at the start itself : there are no gods in this tale. No one harnesses supernatural powers and nor are they the descendants of gods. They are Kings, Queens and Princes forever locked in the game of thrones. Merit should be awarded to the author for having stepped away from the ages old way of garishly painting Duryodhana as the baddie. In this tale, he is referred to by his actual name of Syyodhan and he is just another character and not the prince of darkness as most other authors would have us believe. This being the first installment I did not see nor hear much of Karna. If we go by the usual sentiments of authors, they romanticize this character to glorious heights of excessive magnanimity and valor. Here, Karna (or Vasusen) is a vassal King of Hastinapura and that is pretty much about him. No fanfare, no muses singing his praises with their lyres fully tuned etc. Then there is Krishna (or Govinda Shauri in this incarnation), the one who holds all the strings and plans out the ascent of his cousin Dharma Yudhishtir to the Emperor’s throne. Lives are made and destroyed, hearts are broken and left by the wayside, men and women die in the hundreds and still the kingdoms vie for the ultimate prize (reminds you of GRRM, doesn’t it ?). The first installment closes after Govinda and Bhima dethrone the Emperor , Jarasandha of Magadha and hence clear the way for Yudhishtir’s meteoric rise. The author is in command of her language and has a good way with words. It is a well written book from the language perspective.
And now sadly for the other parts of the book ! The whole book is hinged on a clash of clans (two of them !) – The firewrights ( the ones who hold the key to weapons technology) and the firstborn (the ones who are the trusted counselors of royalty). The conflict between these two overshadows even the Kaurava – Pandava conflict and gives the story a whole new dimension. The author unspools thread after thread of conspiracies and counter-moves and somewhere post two-thirds of the book, I lost my bearings and kept confusing firewrights with firstborns. A typical conversation that I had with my mind went like this :
Me : Alright, so that is a firewright in action !
Mind : No, it is a firstborn you fool !
Me : But I thought the author said it is a firewright, didn’t she ?
Mind : That was three pages ago, what were you looking at ?
Me : Oh darn you, you misleading double-crosser you !
Mind : Don’t you blame me for your sloppiness…
And so on.
Another point of disagreement with the author was on describing battle scenes. The Mahabharata is chock full of them and it is any fantasy writer’s best bet to lavish attention on them. This is exactly a point where I found the author to not reach up to her mark as a writer of fantasy. A tremendous battle is hinted at and as soon as you snap your fingers, it is over. The author just skims over the whole battle with a little glance at it all. If this keeps up, I might be in for a soggy ending during the Kurukshetra scenes. Towards the end, the book starts meandering and some of the principal characters go off on adventures which make no sense while looked at from the main story. A few scenes featuring Govinda also tend to get to being nothing more than rambling and long, long discourses which are not very enlightening.
By the look of things, I get a feel that the story has bitten off more than what it could chew. There are so many loose ends here that I surely hope the author ties them all up before the trilogy is done with.
Remember what the wise man said : If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it's not going to be fired, it shouldn't be hanging there.
One thing is set straight right at the start itself : there are no gods in this tale. No one harnesses supernatural powers and nor are they the descendants of gods. They are Kings, Queens and Princes forever locked in the game of thrones. Merit should be awarded to the author for having stepped away from the ages old way of garishly painting Duryodhana as the baddie. In this tale, he is referred to by his actual name of Syyodhan and he is just another character and not the prince of darkness as most other authors would have us believe. This being the first installment I did not see nor hear much of Karna. If we go by the usual sentiments of authors, they romanticize this character to glorious heights of excessive magnanimity and valor. Here, Karna (or Vasusen) is a vassal King of Hastinapura and that is pretty much about him. No fanfare, no muses singing his praises with their lyres fully tuned etc. Then there is Krishna (or Govinda Shauri in this incarnation), the one who holds all the strings and plans out the ascent of his cousin Dharma Yudhishtir to the Emperor’s throne. Lives are made and destroyed, hearts are broken and left by the wayside, men and women die in the hundreds and still the kingdoms vie for the ultimate prize (reminds you of GRRM, doesn’t it ?). The first installment closes after Govinda and Bhima dethrone the Emperor , Jarasandha of Magadha and hence clear the way for Yudhishtir’s meteoric rise. The author is in command of her language and has a good way with words. It is a well written book from the language perspective.
And now sadly for the other parts of the book ! The whole book is hinged on a clash of clans (two of them !) – The firewrights ( the ones who hold the key to weapons technology) and the firstborn (the ones who are the trusted counselors of royalty). The conflict between these two overshadows even the Kaurava – Pandava conflict and gives the story a whole new dimension. The author unspools thread after thread of conspiracies and counter-moves and somewhere post two-thirds of the book, I lost my bearings and kept confusing firewrights with firstborns. A typical conversation that I had with my mind went like this :
Me : Alright, so that is a firewright in action !
Mind : No, it is a firstborn you fool !
Me : But I thought the author said it is a firewright, didn’t she ?
Mind : That was three pages ago, what were you looking at ?
Me : Oh darn you, you misleading double-crosser you !
Mind : Don’t you blame me for your sloppiness…
And so on.
Another point of disagreement with the author was on describing battle scenes. The Mahabharata is chock full of them and it is any fantasy writer’s best bet to lavish attention on them. This is exactly a point where I found the author to not reach up to her mark as a writer of fantasy. A tremendous battle is hinted at and as soon as you snap your fingers, it is over. The author just skims over the whole battle with a little glance at it all. If this keeps up, I might be in for a soggy ending during the Kurukshetra scenes. Towards the end, the book starts meandering and some of the principal characters go off on adventures which make no sense while looked at from the main story. A few scenes featuring Govinda also tend to get to being nothing more than rambling and long, long discourses which are not very enlightening.
By the look of things, I get a feel that the story has bitten off more than what it could chew. There are so many loose ends here that I surely hope the author ties them all up before the trilogy is done with.
Remember what the wise man said : If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it's not going to be fired, it shouldn't be hanging there.