The Immortals of Meluha: The Shiva Trilogy Book 1

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He maintains a respectful approach, unlike Devdutt Pattnaik(The Pregnant King), and creates a new world for the readers.

It tells of the adventures of one Shiva circa 1900BC in the region known then as the Sapt Sindhu; "The land of the Indus, Saraswati, Yamuna, Ganga, Sarayu, Brahmaputra and Narmada.

As of January 2013, The Immortals of Meluha, and its sequel, The Secret of the Nagas, have crossed a print run of a million copies. Tripathi also revealed during Jaipur Literature Festival that an unnamed Hollywood producer bought the rights for an American version of the film.

Just that this book could have talked about a time way before that which would have actually made sense. As I said in the beginning, I am biased towards Lord Shiva and so understandably, I have tried to read some stories and books based on him. The intricate setup of the world and the political turmoil of Meluha paint a vivid picture of the era.Changing a myth to cater to the modern crowd has its consequences; this book seems no different than let’s say a book containing a saviour sceptical of his destiny upon arrival to a new land, surrounded by people telling him what to do and just trying to get through life by falling in love and making friends. The once proud empire and its Suryavanshi rulers face severe perils as its primary river, the revered Saraswati, is slowly drying to extinction. Normally, Thai people are quite familiar with Pali and Sanskrit (in Thai) but meeting these ancient language in English. The success of his debut book, The Immortals of Meluha (Book 1 of the Shiva Trilogy), encouraged him to give up his career in financial services to focus on writing. The concept of a once-great empire facing peril and the emergence of a hero amidst chaos captivated my imagination from the very beginning.

With a plot that is virtually non-existent, characters that are quarter-baked, terrible language and dialogues that range from asinine to absurd, Immortals of Meluha can be best described as a brilliant concept gone complete awry in execution. Nandita Sengupta from The Times of India felt that "while the author spins a tale of adventure, it could have been a slightly snappier, tighter read. After finishing writing The Immortals of Meluha, Tripathi faced rejection from many publication houses. Enraged by this, Shiva declares war on the Chandravanshis at Swadweep, consulting with Devagiri Chief Minister Kanakhala and the Head of Meluhan Army, Parvateshwar. Mumbai-born Amish Tripathi gave up a highly successful career as a banker following the enormous success in India of his first book, The Immortals of Meluha, this was followed by The Secret of the Nagas and The Oath of the Vayuputras (jointly The Shiva Trilogy).His inner struggle, turmoil, frustration and desperation to find the answer, the solution and the final realization. We follow him as he rises from the lowly stature of a foreign barbarian that's the Chief of a mountain tribe to a charismatic Lord Shiva that's been destined and prophesied to be Meluha's god of gods, the ultimate Philosopher King.

However, if I were a parent, even a poor one, would I happily give up my child for this seeming ‘equality’? The book is based on the belief that perhaps the actions, the deeds and karma are the only deciding factors in transforming an ordinary man to Mahadev - God of Gods. Using the same characters, places and names which are associated with Lord Shiva -Mansarovar,Sati, Nandi, Daksh, Gunas, makes the whole story very believable and easy to relate to. Just for an instance, I started counting the number of times the word "hell" has been used by shiva in the entire book - 32 times.The author had some good places where he could have ended this book but he chose to end the book with a cliffhanger and a 'To Be Continued'.