The Immortals of Meluha: Extrapolating the Grains of Myth

 

                                                                                                                  
“Finally crossed the barriers of distaste caused by the 'thrust-it-on' promotional drive and the ill-designed cover page of 'The Immortals of Meluha' to take the first look at what lay inside...” – I posted on Facebook the day I chose to check for myself whether it was marketing gimmick alone that made Ameesh Tripathy’s debut work an overnight bestseller.

And bang came the first comment that buttressed my skepticism - “Antara my dear, it’s a disaster, I fell for this deal and ordered both ‘The Immortals of Meluha’ and ‘The Secret of the Nagas’. The first book made me ‘LOL & sob’ at the dialogues and quality of the language used…”

Well, now that I’ve completed the book, I’ll rather liberate myself from evaluating it on the basis of its literary merit. To me - ‘The Immortals of Meluha’ owes its phenomenal success to a GROUND-BREAKING IDEA, teeming with ingredients to sell like a hot cake – of course, with the right visibility. It’s an idea trivialized by a quality of language so mediocre that the book risks being dismissed by serious readers; but an idea bolstered by marked originality, ample drama, and of course unforeseen promotion – so that it was readily lapped up by the film makers of prominence. The book, for all its appeal, cannot be called a worthwhile piece of ‘literature’, and yet for me - it has been quite a read that has significantly influenced my attitude towards history, religion and mythology.

We Smelt The Woods...

Year 2010 saw my first tryst with the woods...
A fruition of the innumerable dreams of adventure I grew up with…
Campfires, tents, sleeping bags, log houses deep into the heart of the forest, occasional roars of wild beasts and GOOSEBUMPS!

To touch the misty horizon...

Well, that's what I had EXPECTED it to be when the four of us finally set out for the forests of Duars^* (or Dooars) in the foothills of Eastern Himalayas on a cold January night; - all thanks to my Dad’s lifelong obsession with jungle movies, and also to Ms. Enid Blyton – who penned the daredevil ventures of Secret Seven that formed my staple diet as a kid.

The Fasting Female Engineer

Our first awakening reveals that our mind,
Conditioned as it is to superstition and tradition,
Is the prison-house in which we dwell.
- Joel Goldsmith

My Dad belongs to a generation that had always seen engineering as a male bastion until their hair greyed, and then - IT happened in India. They blinked their eyes, and lo, the number of engineering colleges in the state had quadrupled! They blinked their eyes again, and their own daughters had enrolled themselves for Electronics or Computer Engineering! The third time they blinked, hosts of young lady engineers had bagged lucrative jobs with the top multinational corporates of the world! And then, their skepticism made way for claps of acclamation, and their fantasies took flight.

“What do you girls talk about when you sit together after office, Papai?”
“How did your friends react on this particular piece of news?”
“Since you girls spend so much of time together, why don’t you undertake a group project to intercept and decode the terrorist intercommunications in India?”

A Strange Afternoon and Teach For India

So? Joining ‘Teach For India’?

“So? Joining ‘Teach For India’?” asked the baritone that could put Big B to shame. My heart jumped and bumped against my larynx even before my eyes could affirm the quick diagnosis by my auditory senses – it was unmistakably the voice of God!

Now, not many expect God to be seated directly across their dining table on an unassuming Sunday afternoon! Neither can many, I suppose, handle uninvited Divine curiosity after such an unapologetic apparition! I didn’t know what to make of it.

“Not really.”– I said.

Figments of the subconscious, or a mere fancy

And then I take a dip into the eternal wonder of mankind. Do ‘I’ get dissolved, dismissed at death? Just like my memory cells, my genes?

‘Na hanyate hanyamaane sharire*’, says God, and asks the smoky ‘me’ rising from my pyre –‘So, what did you do with your life, my friend?’

‘Well, I studied, made a career, had a nice warm family, made some really nice friends, performed my roles kind-of satisfactorily, you see!’

God: ‘And is that what you were sent for?’
Me: ‘You never specified something else!’
God: ‘Huh! Don’t frustrate me, you!’
Me: ‘Uh! I felt insignificant, Lord… powerless. What could I do?’
God: ‘Shooh! And I had placed you in world’s top 5% privileged lot!’

I give my habitual blank and confused look to God.

God: ‘Fine! 50 rebirths as chicken to adorn the pizzas of the IT youth! Howz that?’