Had high hopes after reading Ram and Sita. This book has many disjoints and much of the story was just dragged. Personally, this is a disappointing book. ( )

All the 3 POVs so far have been equally thrilling and mesmerising. Excited for the last 2 books of this series. ( )

I had completely forgotten this book was releasing last week until someone mentioned on a group chat, and I knew I had to read it immediately. I actually didn’t have a lot of expectations, just wanted it to be an engaging read, but this one turned out to be surprisingly very good.

It wasn’t until the second book of this series Sita did I realize it was going to be a multilinear narrative with the first three books following three different characters but merging at the same point towards the end. This made the experience of reading Sita a bit boring because the last third of the book felt very repetitive. I guess I went into this book feeling similarly, but Amish definitely did a great job of dispelling all my misconceptions. The writing is very engaging right from the get go, fast paced and entertaining while also not shying away from the philosophical and dharmic discussions that I’ve come to associate with Amish’s books. The entire reinterpretation of Raavan’s backstory, which we generally don’t know much about is done masterfully and I loved how much of emotion the author was able to evoke in us. I also really loved the whole theme of every hero needing a strong villain in their life to have a large scale impact on the minds of the people. I guess my only gripe was that because the book was covering a very long timeline, there were huge time jumps and we are only told about major events rather than showing them happen.

Raavan’s character is really a study in contrasts. He is knowledgeable, accomplished, intelligent and ruthless but on the other hand loves his brother Kumbhakarna to no end. He has his moments of humanity and just when you think he is capable of change, something happens that completely changes the trajectory of his life. The depiction of unrequited love and absolute grief is so utterly raw and gritty in this book that it really shook me. Kumbhakarna is a character whom we don’t much about at all in the original epic but he completely fascinated me here and I really liked him a lot. At his core, he is a kind and compassionate person who wants to be more dharmic, but his devotion to his brother is also complete which leads him onto paths he doesn’t necessarily want to embark on. I adored the interactions between the brothers - how they were able to show their vulnerabilities to each other made me very emotional and connected to their relationship, but also seeing it change gradually pained me. It’s definitely this relationship that carries the emotional weight of the story and is what made it such a wonderful read.

To finish, I just wanna say that if you are fan of Amish’s earlier works, you should definitely read this one because I thought it had a great balance of mythology, political machinations, mystery and emotion. It also ends on a very epic note and I’m already very excited to see how Amish is gonna interpret the rest of the epic. However, if you haven’t read any of the author’s books before, I would highly recommend to start with the Immortals of Meluha. While this Ram Chandra series is not exactly a spin-off of the Meluha trilogy, there are many interconnecting elements between the two that I feel can be enjoyed better if you have start at the beginning.

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Among the three, this book stands out with respect to plot, detailing, creating depth to characters and of course on the gripping story telling. The character Raavan was not much explored in its original story, but had quite glimpses about his good and bad sides. Amish explores more to this and connects the dots so that Raavan emerges as a full-fledged character where every aspects of his nature be it good or bad gets connected to his life events... If you have finished the first two books, this will give you more clarity. if not also, this can be taken as a standalone and will not disappoint you... ( )

Truly a magnificent book. Loved it a lot. As the name suggests, this is a book about the hated Raavan that we have seen so far in the previous books. Told from mostly his perspective, the common events from the other books take on a different meaning, add to it the life of Raavan from his childhood until the moment of abduction gives us the insight into why he does what he does. That has never been explained in any version of Ramayana (but I am not an expert in the matter, just my opinion). Even though it was fictional this assimilated with the story really well. At no point in time did the author try to justify the evil done by Raavan but instead made it seem plausible.
Hope the next book is released soon. Eagerly waiting to see what will happen after the abduction and how the conflict will be resolved. Even though we know the direction the story will take, I am waiting to see what Amish Tripathi will do differently this time.

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