The Immortals of Meluha by Amish Tripathi
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The author is a management graduate from IIM Calcutta. This is his debut novel, the first of the Shiva Trilogy and a great believer of Lord Shiva and his power.

Storyline: Shiva, a leader and a fierce warrior of a tribe called Guna in the Himalayan mountains, near Lake Manasarovar adjacent to Mount Kailash, who led a simple life, was lured by the advanced civilization of the Suryavanshis from a land called Meluha, in order to lead them to a war against their opponents, the Chandravanshis from a land called Swadweep, under the pretext that Chandravanshis want to destroy Meluha out of jealousy, with the help of Nagas, another deadly clan from down South of India. Meluhans differ from the Swadweepans in their disciplined and organized lifestyle in comparison to the free and conservative nature of their counterparts. Both of them follow and interpret their deity Lord Ram’s principles in their own way. In the process of administering their eternal, exclusive and prestigious drink ‘Somras’ on Shiva, the Meluhans discover that Shiva is none other than their long awaited Neelkanth, who is supposed to be their savior and destroyer of evil, as per the legend they believed in. Shiva falls in love with the widowed daughter (Sati) of Daksh, the emperor of Meluha and gets married to her. In return, Daksh forced Shiva to lead a war against the Chandravanshis led by their ruler Dilipa, after the suspected attack of the former’s great Somras manufacturing facility, by the latter. Shiva after defeating Chandravanshis in a fierce-full war, realizes that they are not at all evil but just different from the disciplined and advanced Suryvanshis. He repents for his mistake of being responsible for the death of so many innocent Chandravanshis, who also believed in the same legend, mentioned earlier, and waiting for their Neelkanth. The book is left open ended when Sati is attacked by a Naga when she accompanies Shiva in Ayodhya, the Swadweepan capital.

Positives: One of the best book series of recent times by an Indian author. A great interest is generated among the readers when one starts reading the book as it pertains to the identity and popularity of Lord Shiva, the highest worshiped God by the Hindus. Anxiety mounts every second as one is driven by interest to know what happens next chapter by chapter. One gets to know the origination of the Somras and its great immortal effects on human body scientifically explained. Terms associated with Lord Shiva and their importance explained with scientific logic like Mahadev, Nataraj dance posture, deadly weapon Trishul, tortoise formation in war etc are worth reading.

Negatives: Might be disturbing to staunch followers of Lord Shiva, that he was once a human being and was subject to all kinds of physical and spiritual emotions just like all of us and could be even be misled by someone else. This book questions the fact about the basic belief in every Hindu whether the Gods that they worship today were once upon a time just humans who have become great by their deeds and virtues

My rating is 3.75/5


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