Chanakya’s chants
Author: Ashwin Sanghi
Publisher: Westland ltd.
ISBN 978-93-80658-67-4
The author Ashwin Sanghi, an entrepreneur by profession, publishes this novel in his own name unlike his first The Rozabal Line which was published under a pseudonym Shawn Haigins.
The books swings in time between the Chankyan Era and Modern India politically. He draws parallels in between the lives of the modern-day King maker Gangaprasad and the ancient Chanakya Vishnugupta.
The book is fairly interesting, though the author is not able to linguistically create the swing in time. He has Gangaprasad’s protégée Chandini Gupta to match Chanakya’s Chandragupta. The twist being a romantic angle of Chanakya who lands up being Rakshas mistress her curse will allow the chant of Chankya to succeed only if the protégée is a woman. He also attributes the success of chanakya to his Shakti mantra.
What I now do is a taboo, but after the refined time swing of Asoka era by Amita Kanekar the book seems a little crude.
An interesting book to borrow and read.
Category Archives: historic
A spoke in the wheel
A SPOKE IN THE WHEEL
Author: Amita Kanekar
Publisher HarperCollins India.
ISBN 81-7223-574-7
Genre Historic Novel.
Amita Kanekar a teacher of archaeological history and comparative mythology narrates a tale of the Buddha. Like the traditional Indian storytelling, it is metatheaterical in character where the story of the Buddha is revealed through the story of his biographer to be Upali. Upali is a Monk of the turbulent post Kalinga Maurya Empire he envisions the degeneration of the Aryravarta during the period of Gautama Siddhartha who came to be known as the Gautama Buddha or the Shakyamuni.
My own experience was that there seems a vague parallel between the current social health and the periods of the Shakyamuni and Asoka Maurya which could explain the revival of Buddhism. This of course is a very personal observation.
A very interesting read though the pace might have been a little more upbeat if the period of Upali and Asoka Maurya was in active tense.
Looking forward to Kanekar’s next novel.
a spoke in the wheel
