For Old Times’ Sake

Some years ago, Chetan Bhagat did the unthinkable: he made young and restless Indians read his tales of urban India in conversational English. Soon, Indians were craving for stories of the country by home-grown authors. This need is now being met by writers who are giving Indian history and mythology a contemporary twist. The result has been rewarding — Ashwin Sanghi’s Chanakya’s Chant, Anish Sarkar’s Benaami, and The Immortals of Meluha by Amish rule the bestseller lists.

Though authors such as Devdutt Pattanaik, Ashok Banker and William Dalrymple have retold stories from Indian mythology and history, the trend of using these for commercial fiction seems to be a recent one. Sanghi believes that these stories establish an immediate connection with the readers and make for gripping backdrops. “The initial hook for a commercial fiction paperback in this genre must necessarily come from the ancient. Once the reader is hooked, then it does not matter if the story is history-oriented or not,” he says.

Full report here Indian Express

Art of myth-ematics

Jaya; Devdutt Pattanaik
Penguin; Rs 499; pp. 349

Devdutt Pattanaik’s Jaya: An Illustrated Retelling of the Mahabharata has the words and image text feel of a Lonely Planet guide. It navigates the reader through an inexhaustible epic where, as the blurb says,
A son renounces sex so that his old father can remarry A daughter is a prize in an archery context A teacher demands half a kingdom as his tuition fee A student is turned away because of his caste A mother asks her sons to share a wife The complex stories of the Mahabharata and their bewildering cast of characters have been made accessible through the delightful format of the book. It has a 108 chapters with over 250 line drawings, executed in a sharp and informed patta-chitra inspired style by Devdutt himself. Boxes and brief notes provide context, information and insight, and guide the reader through the labyrinthine narrative and its social and cultural cues. As his source material, Pattanaik has employed the classical Sanskrit text interpolated with variations from folk and regional texts such as the Pandavani and Yakshagana. Pattanaik’s unconventional attitude to mythology treats it as a living, contemporary arena of ideology, motivation and popular attitude.

There is an urgency and immediacy in the way Pattanaik lays out these stories. He evades the temptation to render them in high-sounding pseudo-Sanskrit style. The intriguing boxed texts carry the most unexpected nuggets of information. For example, the Rules of War, and the Rule Breakers, take the reader through the battle ethics and transgressions of the Mahabharata in just half a page. Similarly, the warriors and their insignia, and other such details, with references to concurrent versions, are laid out to provide breaks in the narration whereby the reader can reflect on and absorb the text. However, there are instances when the research and validation of this ‘information’ is haphazard and not academically accurate.

full review here Deccan Chronicle 

Heaven is available till stocks last

Devdutt Pattanaik is fighting passionately to bring the clarity of Indian mythology to corporate decision-making, says Gaurav Jain

I believe I exist for a reason. I believe I have to write these things — which is my own private delusion, of course,” smiles Devdutt Pattanaik. In the ever-eccentric intellectual landscape, he cuts a mild but momentous figure. He’s a self-taught scholar of Indian mythology who reads only English, and has no intention of learning other languages. He’s a prolific writer and also an increasingly talked-about corporate coach with the enviable title of Chief Belief Officer at Future Group, the corporation behind Big Bazaar and Pantaloons.

He’s also fast reaching critical mass. He’s exhausted most Indian gods as themes for primers and maintained a steady torrent of articles in popular media. He was a speaker to the Jaipur Literature Festival this year and to TEDIndia last year. Now he’s published perhaps his most ambitious book yet — Jaya, a retelling of the entire Mahabharata in 350 lucid pages, where he blends several folk and regional variants of the epic into one linear narrative, alongside his line drawings. Each of the 108 short chapters begins with a mildly contrarian epigraph and ends with an engaging tippani (comment).

Full report here Tehelka