Review of Scion of Ikshvaku by Amish Tripathi

“Lakshman held his peace even as his shoulders drooped.” Sentences as these is why we should read Amish Tripathi - Goes the first line in my notes. I guess this is the most positive line in the entire notes that followed.

It did appear that Amish learnt one magic trick and used the same in all his shows. I totally loved the Shiva Trilogy. With the same love, I bought this book. But it has nothing to offer, no story, no language, nothing to take away. I hardly felt my heart race, as it often did during the Shiva Trilogy.

Story:

Amish is no master of imagination and the same concepts from Shiva trilogy like Somras, Vayuputras, Astras, Nagas are all borrowed here. As a result the plot takes disastrous turns.

Amish took the old Ramayan, added the hot topic of the decade, feminism. He desperately tries to add feminism in tribal women, Kaikeyi or Roshini. But he fails real badly many times and sexism shouts loudly.

The initial chapters go really, really slow. I don’t see a natural flow in the stories. It’s like connecting random stuff from past with recent happenings. He tries to create suspense in the stories which fall flat. 

If Amish had kept his audiences in his mind, the final outcome would match the standards of school kids. There is often reminder of Ram’s unfortunate entry into this world, the ages of the princes, Ashram names of the princes, the way blood clots which indicates that person in alive while tortured. He spoon feeds you the details of the story just like a school teacher to the kids.

The introduction of Sita to Ram would sound perfect for the dreamy girl who wanted bedtime stories to dream about but not to today’s independent girl who can easily find out the pseudo-feminism.

Characters:

Amish created shallow characters, they all are quite obvious. Lakshman is always the suspicious fellow, Ram is always right, Dasharath is no more the strong man he once was, Roshni is an independent woman, Kaikeyi is manipulative, Manthara is cunning, Sita is strong, Urmila is dedicate, Kaushalya is timid, Sumitra is smart and so on. These single words are enough to describe the characters and any more sentences in the book doesn’t add any more to them. For example, in chapter 2, Lakshman is Ram’s protector and even in chapter 16, the former is the same.

Ram and Sita’s characters are a little intriguing.

Amish’s linked Bharat’s character to Lord Krishna, I don’t understand the need for it.

If I go with my blind understanding, Sita would be shown as the next Vishnu instead of Ram or maybe it’s just a ending punch line to attract crowds.

I see a strong connection between the situation when Asuras asked to leave the country to India-Pakistan partition. Asuras can be related to terrorists according to Amish’s explanation, shouting “Our God is the One” and attacks they often make around the world.

Language and Writing:

The vocabulary is boring and lots of words are repeated. It is written in a plain, simple, bland way. There is no magic in his sentences. Additionally, there are many grammatical mistakes. Here and there we do find some new words, but that we could gain by daily newspaper too.

If the editorial team had worked well enough, the effort of reading at least ¼ th of the novel would have been reduced.

Very little intelligent writing is done in the form of shallow philosophy.

Pros:

The strong point of Amish is his description of events of action, like combats, fights, war. Just as they go on he reveals to our eyes, step by step.

He has another strong hold on architectural descriptions.

Cons:

Amish unleashes his true nature, the patriarchal one in chapter 25. There are some sentences in the book which I liked so much that I highlighted them. And there are some sentences that hated so badly that I wanted to scratch them off the book. Page 284 - “who didn’t compete for exact equality but were complementary, completing each other.” in the next line he says, “two halves of a whole”, won’t that make both the halves equal?

In the time when we are trying to erase and rewrite stereotypes, Amish repeats the Delhi gore action to action. Just like the perpetrators thought they should teach women a lesson, Amish didn’t find any feeling in him to contrast them. Create a independent, courageous, bold woman and then teach her a lesson.

Rating:
2/5