In 2016, I
shared a room in London for two weeks with an ISKCON devotee.
Vinod, as most
people remember him was someone who had indulged in a whole host of activities
that could be considered sinful. This included eating meat, drinking copious
amounts of alcohol, not going to the temple, not keeping fasts etc. Until one
day, he turned into a devout ISKCON devotee.
The change was
dramatic. And confusing. And I was fascinated.
In those two
weeks, I quizzed him on everything. What changed? How did you go from being a
complete non-believer to a pious devotee in under a month? Why do you have just
one wife when Krishna had sixteen thousand? Stuff like that.
Bemused but delighted at my interest. V gladly
answered all my questions. His absolute conviction in theism clashed with my
absolute opposite stance on the matter but I enjoyed our discussions.
His biggest
complaint was that Indian mythology was so rich and interconnected that he
couldn’t fathom why everyone else wasn’t as passionate about it. And that got
me thinking…
I remember
being fascinated by the stories I read as a kid of Indian folk tales. They were
full of brave and noble heroes, evil demons, magical weapons and the like –why
would people not read them more? They had all the elements of a great story. Of
the stories I like to read and the stories I wish to tell.
That’s when it
struck me. Maybe a lot of people don’t relate to those stories anymore. We live
in a world of technology. Reading about the past may appeal to a niche, but not
to a lot of those who like contemporary fiction. The close the book they were
reading and the world they go back to is as different as it comes from the
world they just escaped into.
What if it didn’t
have to be that way?
What if they
had the same magic, demons, gods and myths, but set in present day India?
That was the
first tiny seed. But there was more to follow.
I enjoy Flash
Gordon a bit more than Star Trek – they may both be sci-fi, but they are so
vastly different.
But mythology
in India? Its always the same. Set in the past, the same characters stories
being retold, always with reverence as we pussyfoot around religious icons and
each person unable to break out of the mold they were cast in.
Even the covers
for these books rarely change. Its invariably a shirtless guy holding a Vedic
era weapon and frankly it’s not exciting anymore.
I wanted to try
something different. It went against the grain because conventional wisdom has always
been to write what the market wants. Writing to the edges never gets you
anywhere.
And yet…
Curse of the
Yaksha is set in modern times. It serves as a bridge between then and now. It
took five years to get to where it is today, but it has been worth it.
I hope you like
it. And more importantly, I hope it helps a few readers get an appreciation of
the treasure trove of stories that we have in our folklore.
The best Part?
This is only the beginning – there are stories lined up to expand the mythos
and take us to places they’ve never been.
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