Anand Neelakantan's First Book celebrating
its first Anniversary
The same fragrance of intact writing style and touch of mind gripping storyline, that is what happens when we read Anand Neelakantan – be it
his year old
Asura – Tale of theVanquished – the Story of Ravana and his People; or his upcoming book about to be released on December 1, 2013,
Ajaya – Epic of Kaurava Clan Book 1 – Roll of the Dice (cover release). Anand has a
great classical art of sensitizing about his subject right in the beginning so as to get
his readers engrossed the moment they start reading his work that is based on mythological
epics but presented in an entirely different manner. Ajaya is the story of
infamous, notorious, anti-hero of Mahabharata, Duryodhana.
This book will present entirely a new picture of Duryodhana,
his human side, his hero side, his softer side, his nobler side. Duryodhana’s
name was Suyodhana actually, and Su was replaced with Dur by Pandavas.
According to Neelakantan if Duryodhana was not rightful in his deeds then how
come the great warriors like Karna, Krishna’s army, Dronacharya, Bheeshma, and
others would have supported him. Other meanings of his name are ‘one who can’t
be conquered’ or Ajaya as the title says.
Anand’s Author’s note in Ajaya is quite interesting where he
explains why he chose Duryodhana and the reasoning behind it. It was a small
incident and a small conversation that happened years back when he visited a
small village named Poruvazhy village in Kerala. He found a temple with deity
as Duryodhana. Around an ensemble of over a lac of persons there in and around
that temple for worshipping the lord of that temple, Duryodhana, on a special
occasion, was there. The author wondered if there was any such temple in the
name of the main villain of Mahabharata existed and tried to know about the
reason for the same.
What he got to know was quite interesting.
Once Duryodhana
reached that place while searching for Pandavas and felt very thirsty, and
demanded some water from an old woman passing through. The lady gave her the
water but immediately realized that the person to whom she gave water belongs
to some royal Kshatriya family and she herself belonged to a very low caste.
She got afraid that this royal person would kill her if he comes to know about
it but her heart did not allow her to hide the truth. When she told this to
Duryodhana – he humbly replied - “Mother,” he said, “there is no caste for
hunger and thirst. Blessed are you for putting the interest of a thirsty man
before your own safety.”
Thus he made a temple there and told there will be no idol
placed in that temple and the upkeep of that temple would be handled by someone
among the low caste untouchable community. The temple, thus, became a place of getting inner strength for this low caste untouchable community
and its popularity kept increasing every year.
Anand Neelakantan returned and did a good amount research for
writing about the positive side of this prominent but anti character of
Mahabharata and thus
Ajaya – Epic of
Kaurava Clan Book 1 – Roll of the Dice got conceived and came into shape.
You can get the prelude here and enter a contest here to get more chapters of this interesting and mind-boggling entertainer epical saga.
