Sunday Book Review- The Shiva Trilogy

I've finally finished reading this trilogy It started off as a nicely executed and very intriguing story but i was  bored and disappointed by the time i was done.

When “The Immortals of Meluha” came out, I was uninterested. But when my sister bought the book, I read it out of sheer curiousity. Book critiques had been calling him the new Chetan Bhagat. I quite liked many of Chetan Bhagat’s books so I was intrigued by another Indian author who was an IIM alumnus.

The Shiva Trilogy is an interesting rendition of the story of Shiva. The protagonist, Shiva, is a tribal leader in Tibet constantly battling to protect his tribe, the Gunas. He is persuaded to leave the tribal life that is full of relentless petty battles and warfare when he is invited by an ambassador of Meluha, an empire created by Lord Ram, to join their city. The Gunas travel to Meluha and on the first night, they are administered a mysterious potion called the Somras. The effect of the Somras turns Shiva’s neck blue. This leads to the widespread belief that he is the fabled Neelkanth who will bring about great change and the destruction of evil.

But what is evil?

The three books (The Imortals of Meluha", "The Secret of the Nagas", "The Oath of the Vayuputras), pan over the continent of India as Shiva searches for the root of Evil. He battles many Evil masks that hide the true nature of Good and uncovers great mysteries.

The trilogy does convey a lovely story and many philosophies of Good vs Evil. It convinces the reader that Evil and Good are two sides of the same coin. And yet, for an avid reader, it is a weak book series with many holes, barely any character development and far too many words are wasted on descriptions.

I liked the story but hated the book. While i was reading, i never felt connected to any of the characters. When significant characters were killed off, i found myself saying, “Meh! i knew that was coming”. The story’s major flaw is weak characters. Amish Tripathi may have understood the philosophy that the world is not black and white but he hasn’t understood the flaws of the human mind. People are flawed. That’s why our world is flawed. But that’s what makes us human. The characters on the Neelkanth’s side seem largely like robots. Parvateshwar, the General of the Meluhan army who becomes the Neelkanth’s most trusted friend, sticks to duty like a true kshatriya. But where is his weakness? What makes him human? He seems solely focused on dharma. But to what extent? And Shiva’s wife, Sati doesn’t seem like a woman at all. She is described as dutiful, fiery, maternal and beautiful. It seems like Tripathi’s view is that  motherhood is the only thing that describes a woman.  The protagonist was probably the most well-developed character in the book as well as the only one. But in the last book, even that is reversed as Shiva rarely displays complex emotions: Love, Anger, Happiness, Pain are the plain emotions described.

Another flaw in the book is that so many words are wasted explaining Hindu terminology, repeatedly. Tripathi has also tried to describe the beautiful scenery but his words did not fuel my imagination, in fact, i found myself skipping those long, odious paragraphs and searching for dialogue. When you write a story, you write for your people. Don’t waste time explaining what you mean. Do you think American Novelists worry about Indians not knowing what the Donner Party is? Nope. They just press on and if the reader wants to know more, they can Google it.

The third and most unforgivable flaw of all is the weak, rather pathetic ending. I call is pathetic because throughout the entire trilogy, there was never any doubt that the Neelkanth’s faction would lose. his opponents were not well organized or clever enough to defeat him. He didn’t win against all odds, he won with them in his favour. And who wants to read a book whose ending they can predict? Not many readers.

The Shiva Trilogy is a wonderful story full of action, romance and philosophy. The telling of the story though, is terrible. For that, I cannot blame the author alone. His editor and publishing team should have helped him turn this rather mediocre script into a powerful, epiphany-inducing book series. Amish Tripathi has the potential to write a "Great Novel" and i hope he does so; but his editor needs to nurture his talent with better care before he can accomplish that.

Would I recommend this book? Yes. It's worth reading for the thrilling story. If you keep your expectations low enough, this book would be a pleasant read.