The Immortals of Meluha by Amish Tripathi.
‘You will find it, when you are ready.’ Maybe its true, this book found me when maybe I was ready. In May 2011, one of my friend’s friend told me to read book after knowing my interest in spirituality. But, I forgot the exact name and couldn’t find the book. I thought maybe I will find, when it is for me. In Nov 2011, while travelling through Metro I found one boy reading a intrigue book with a heading ‘Drink of the Gods’. I thought it is somewhat similar to book suggested to earlier by a friend. I read the title from cover of book and searched it on it. The line ‘The Story of the Man, whom legend turned into a God’ invoked so much of the interest in the book. I bought the book. After opening the first page couldn’t take stop reading. I was feeling spellbound and wanted to complete as early as possible. I read the 400 pages in 6 hours, which is very high considering my speed of reading.
I found so much of joy after completing the book that I thought of writing my perception of the book (first by me). I am eagerly waiting to get the second book in the series anticipating to know more about ‘Shiva’ and his adventures to set things as per ‘Dharma’. This book may not be considered as a direct spiritual guide but Amish has explained subtle philosophical issues in a very common and simple language. As rightly said by one of our teacher, our Mythology is laconic i.e. in very less deep truths of life are explained, which is difficult to understand and sometime leads to different interpretations which some of us may not agree. Author has turned many mythological characters into real-life characters in a very gripping plot giving references to some of the archaeological findings. Author has explained the situations and characters by adding some touch of modern/local language so that every individual can find it tale of recent times and connect to it.
For personal achievement author has given some principles. For everything we do, we need energy and there is plenty of energy in nature, food, air, prana shakti etc all around of us. We have to ask energy respectfully. Toxins shall be removed from body for enjoying vigour & health of youth. Excreta, sweat and exhaled air are major way to remove these toxins. We should eat & drink properly, do regular physical work and most importantly breathe properly. Give your 100% according to the situation and doesn’t bother about others opinion.One should be ready to accept the mistakes and necessary corrections. “You cannot drop from the sky everything, can you? You would have to enter from any side.” & “Stay true to your karma, to your duty, inspite of the pain. You took the best decision you could take under the circumstances.”
Book gives great lessons on leadership. One should come out of his limitations so that he can achieve his destiny/ potentials for the betterment of the society – “ A Mahadev is not born from his mother’s womb. He is forged in heat of battle, when he wages a war to destroy evil.” Leader shall earn respect by his deeds. Leader shall set a plan after first convincing himself and then make whole team part of plan, so that whole team feel ownership. He shall have complete faith in his team and shall be ready to take stand injustice/biases in the team in order to get respect and devotion from team. “Har Har Mahadev “ was a masterstroke. This interpretation of slogan by author is very innovative. When whole army of Shiva realised they all are against evil and any person fighting against evil is Mahadev, it filled his whole army with lots of energy and self esteem and even outnumbered they fought to their wild imagination and won the war. Law of Transaction explains the relationship management in very simplistic terms: “If you want something from someone, you have to give that person something they want”.
Author has described two types of political systems.
1) Suryavanshi – land with authoritarian rule with systems, stringent and people friendly policies, which has led to very high standard of living for common people with some flaws. Lack of freedom & stringent rules has made people ignorant & rigid to necessary improvements in the society. It was looking as if every individual was playing his role as ‘a cog in the wheel’ nothing more, nothing less. Challenges by Nagas & fear of unknown has bought the Suryavanshi Emperor to feet of Neelkanth. They required imagination & vision of Shiva to get out of despair and take pro-active action.
2) Chandravanshi- democratic country with too much of freedom, lack of discipline/rules, chaos & poor standard of living. Life of poor people was very tough & state had no plans/policy for their upliftment. Power was centred with rich people. Even with poor life & chaos, some people were happy & had sense to enjoy & celebrate their freedom & choices. Rather than living in fear of rules/state, people were free to express their feeling & views. People had ownership for their lives.
Author has explained flaws of both systems. There is no ideal system; we may require bit of both & flexibility of changes for a good society. Because both had different type of political rule, they despised each other and were insecure towards others. Lack of communication among different factions leads to more mistrust. We should respect the differences and difference doesn’t mean other is evil. We are facing such mistrust among different societies, religions, countries etc. “ Vasudev Kutumbukam” can be achieved only after respecting others and understanding others view.
Every system shall be reformed according to prevalent situations because nature, organism, even technological innovation has to move with evolution to assimilate the new happenings. There should be balance between stability and flexibility in the society according to situations. “Stability allows a person the freedom of choice. People can pursue their dreams only when they are living in a society where survival is not threat. Society shall be flexible enough allow change.”
Suryavanshi Empire had innovative system, where just after delivery all the kids are brought up by state and after getting their caste (profession) as per their potential and performance they were handed to donor family of allotted caste. Although this idea is very much against the basic rights of parenthood, but it allowed flexibility to all the kids to shine as per their talent, birth in particular caste was not any limitation. I agree such a system is impractical to implement and can be corrupted by powerful people but it had unique fairness to the child. Atleast we can look in our country where professions (in rural area), reservation system and social customs are dependent on caste of family where you are born, which is not fair to our coming generation. Rather than continuing caste lineages in the name of reservation/politics, it shall be delinked from profession and reservation. Some new support system based on economic conditions and focussing more on monetary and educational help shall be established. In our country, govt. should take responsibility of education upto graduation of first 2 Childs born of family having annual income less than INR 3 lacs. Rather than creating backdoor entry, it shall focus more on supporting child of weaker section to grow strong to the requirement of the competition. I feel implementation of such a policy may take long time, atleast some steps may be taken in this regard.
A person should be open minded to learn from others and life. Keep your eyes and ear open to disagreement or confusions. “There are many versions of what may appear obvious. Whatever appears as the unshakable truth, the exact opposite may also be true in another context”.
In this book, every passage is rich in meaning, yes, interpretations may be many. Some of readers may find few incidents very trivial, but I feel they are added to make it closer to common life.
I urge you all to give a try.
AKS
AKS
Disclaimer: I don't know author personally, so I don't have any personal interest in supporting this book.
The book was an awesome read n thx for suggesting the same to me!!!
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