Mythology, Movies and Books

As a kid, I used to watch lots of old black and white mythological movies. They used to fascinate me a lot, may be because the characters are Gods and Goddesses we pray in our daily life. Or may be because it was projected in our Indian movies that those holy people used to express themselves in songs and pristine language. Or the knife fights and the way those movies were taken had a different charm altogether. As I grew up and started reasoning everything I have known about, things got quite interesting.

Even today, I browse a lot of articles and stories from the epics - especially Mahabharat. It has got stories that spawn out at every level which join the main thread much later, and what we know about each of its characters is very less. I also read a lot from Dr. Devdutt Pattnaik who said "Myths are subjective truths expressed through stories, symbols and rituals."

Very recently, I have heard of a novel called "The Immortals of Meluha" by an Indian author Amish Tripathi. Ever since I got to know the topic this book discusses, I so wanted to read it. To give a little insight from what I know about the book, it presents a story about how Lord Shiva, the Hindu god could be a human being. Having had this interest in Indian mythology I wanted to start reading this book at the earliest.

Unfortunately, this book was neither available in the bookstores here nor in libraries. The only option was to get it shipped all the way from India, and it was costing five times the cost of the book for the shipping itself. After months wait, a friend went India recently to visit his family. I asked him to to get the book when he returned back. And, now I have my copy with me when he found it in Delhi airport while returning back to US from India after he could not find it anywhere.

Suddenly, I am looking forward to those one hour bus journey to my work and those uncertain and long waiting times for the bus. I will sure be a happy man this Monday! :)