I bought the first book of this trilogy from Flipkart, and already, when I am yet to finish the first chapter, I am struggling to reconcile what I already know about this civilization, with what the author states. I like these kind of historical novels; but of course when there is a credible amount of history to go along with it. The most supreme example of this genre of authors (writing in English) I have read is probably Umberto Eco. Even Paul Susskind's novels, though set in the present, have strong historical and archaeological themes. This blog entry will (within the confines of an amateurish capability) discuss and separate fact from fiction in the novel. Moreover, this will not review the plot or characters; but will simply take up facts and deal with them.
A starting disappointment: the author is by profession, not a historian or an archaeologist. While this does not bar him from writing on anything he chooses to, a reasonably serious attempt would have been to acknowledge scholars in the field who would have something to say about the manuscript. I found none. Moreover, no-where is it written that all the characters and many of the places in the novel are fictional. Is this a work where most things are fictional? Or does it draw from history? How much? It is not clear.
Let's start with the word: Mehluha. Supposedly, this is the name Mesopotamians gave the people of the east. Moreover, many of the archaeologists agree with this (supposedly! Note that I am no expert, so will only present my conclusions from articles seen on the web. However, see this for detail: http://www.harappa.com/arrow/meluhha_and_agastya_2009.pdf).
Timing: The incidents are supposedly took place around 1900 BC. With a very conservative estimate, I would say that this corresponds to the early Vedic period, or roughly the timespan when the Aryans were coming to India, and the so-called Indus Valley Civilization was decaying.
I don't think that this can correspond to an Aryan viewpoint, primarily because this is abound with non-aryan symbolism's. The Aryans were prolific writers (on the contrary the gurukul system educated by word of mouth), they didn't dwell in cities or citadels, they didn't have doctors, nurses or immigration systems or quarantines in the city. I don't think any civilization in ancient history had the systematics of quarantine. A person infected with a contagious disease could be left aside, that's one thing; and quarantine is another! That seems kind of borrowed from science fiction, even while dealing with history. And the city of Srinagar did not exist in the year 1900 BC. This kind of thing, in my personal opinion, is wrong. You do not glorify a city unnecessarily.
Even in the first chapter, the reference to Aryan words and customs seems very frequent. This is rather puzzling: since I guess the generic idea is that the Indus Valley customs were widely different from that of the Aryans. The Aryans were mostly agrarian, while the book refers to the existence of fantastic cities, and temples.
The other theme that recurs in the book again and again is the theme of perfection. There is a chief architect, the government provides such services that a modern political state would be ashamed of. And there was Census three thousand years back! Even if I could somehow try to settle down with the facts, a series of more bizarre facts strike me: at 1900 BC, the Meluhan society was living according to science, there was a chief scientist of the Empire, who had full knowledge of the existence of oxygen in the atmosphere. Maybe it's not too much to think that if he had been to high mountains, he would know that the "oxygen" content gets lesser since the air gets thinner. Further, his constant allusion to doing experiments, somewhat unnerves me. The ancient science in India had progressed via the elaboration of physical principles; stuffs of experiment came much later. As the novel progresses, there is a concept of the breaking up of colors: why does the leaf appear green? Well, why else, it rejects green of all the other colors! Now, Newton, and the entire human civilization must have been dump not to realize this thousands of years earlier. But of course, there were Meluhans! They know of the sun as a star which is shining, and about the existence of planets! Such a woe that they didn't leave their knowledge behind.
There is another reference to that of using "glasses" as vision improvement in the place where the Naga-aided Chandravamshis attack the Suryavamshi Royal family when Shiva, Sati and her mother are coming back from Mount Mandar to Devagiri. While glass making in India was known as early as 1700 BC, about 200 years before the events in the story, it is rather far-fetched to presume that the people had mastery of using glass well enough to be used in telescopes. I did a bit of searching the net, and even from there it is not very clear to me that image magnification techniques using devices other than glass were known to such ancient people.
References to the even further ancient history astound and astonish me, about the origin of Manu etc. Personally I find it rather un-nerving when a novel is thrown like this at the faces of the Indian masses, most of whom have learnt to take things at their face value, without further questioning the written word. In this respect, I have to re-iterate, that if the author had takes pains to write down at the very beginning that this is a work of fiction, then it would have put me much more at ease. Even if he believes that all that he has written could have been true, still he should have explained that historical sources do not necessarily support such a hypothesis. Take for example, the novel NOTHING IS BLUE by Biman Nath. Now that, forms very nicely a story from history and without trying to stretch historical facts to the accommodate the story. It does the reverse, and as a result everything fits in very nicely. Or take a more renowned example, the historical novels by Saradindu Bandyapadhyay, or those by Bankimchandra. Maybe this author should have had more inspiration from these authors than from Shiva!
On the whole, I have no problems in accepting this work as an entertaining read, although a rather short and quick one. The storyline is sufficiently simple and straightforward to follow, and you can even make guesses that will be proved right later on. A work of fiction to keep you engaged for the better part of a day in a lighthearted read.
A starting disappointment: the author is by profession, not a historian or an archaeologist. While this does not bar him from writing on anything he chooses to, a reasonably serious attempt would have been to acknowledge scholars in the field who would have something to say about the manuscript. I found none. Moreover, no-where is it written that all the characters and many of the places in the novel are fictional. Is this a work where most things are fictional? Or does it draw from history? How much? It is not clear.
Let's start with the word: Mehluha. Supposedly, this is the name Mesopotamians gave the people of the east. Moreover, many of the archaeologists agree with this (supposedly! Note that I am no expert, so will only present my conclusions from articles seen on the web. However, see this for detail: http://www.harappa.com/arrow/meluhha_and_agastya_2009.pdf).
Timing: The incidents are supposedly took place around 1900 BC. With a very conservative estimate, I would say that this corresponds to the early Vedic period, or roughly the timespan when the Aryans were coming to India, and the so-called Indus Valley Civilization was decaying.
I don't think that this can correspond to an Aryan viewpoint, primarily because this is abound with non-aryan symbolism's. The Aryans were prolific writers (on the contrary the gurukul system educated by word of mouth), they didn't dwell in cities or citadels, they didn't have doctors, nurses or immigration systems or quarantines in the city. I don't think any civilization in ancient history had the systematics of quarantine. A person infected with a contagious disease could be left aside, that's one thing; and quarantine is another! That seems kind of borrowed from science fiction, even while dealing with history. And the city of Srinagar did not exist in the year 1900 BC. This kind of thing, in my personal opinion, is wrong. You do not glorify a city unnecessarily.
Even in the first chapter, the reference to Aryan words and customs seems very frequent. This is rather puzzling: since I guess the generic idea is that the Indus Valley customs were widely different from that of the Aryans. The Aryans were mostly agrarian, while the book refers to the existence of fantastic cities, and temples.
The other theme that recurs in the book again and again is the theme of perfection. There is a chief architect, the government provides such services that a modern political state would be ashamed of. And there was Census three thousand years back! Even if I could somehow try to settle down with the facts, a series of more bizarre facts strike me: at 1900 BC, the Meluhan society was living according to science, there was a chief scientist of the Empire, who had full knowledge of the existence of oxygen in the atmosphere. Maybe it's not too much to think that if he had been to high mountains, he would know that the "oxygen" content gets lesser since the air gets thinner. Further, his constant allusion to doing experiments, somewhat unnerves me. The ancient science in India had progressed via the elaboration of physical principles; stuffs of experiment came much later. As the novel progresses, there is a concept of the breaking up of colors: why does the leaf appear green? Well, why else, it rejects green of all the other colors! Now, Newton, and the entire human civilization must have been dump not to realize this thousands of years earlier. But of course, there were Meluhans! They know of the sun as a star which is shining, and about the existence of planets! Such a woe that they didn't leave their knowledge behind.
There is another reference to that of using "glasses" as vision improvement in the place where the Naga-aided Chandravamshis attack the Suryavamshi Royal family when Shiva, Sati and her mother are coming back from Mount Mandar to Devagiri. While glass making in India was known as early as 1700 BC, about 200 years before the events in the story, it is rather far-fetched to presume that the people had mastery of using glass well enough to be used in telescopes. I did a bit of searching the net, and even from there it is not very clear to me that image magnification techniques using devices other than glass were known to such ancient people.
References to the even further ancient history astound and astonish me, about the origin of Manu etc. Personally I find it rather un-nerving when a novel is thrown like this at the faces of the Indian masses, most of whom have learnt to take things at their face value, without further questioning the written word. In this respect, I have to re-iterate, that if the author had takes pains to write down at the very beginning that this is a work of fiction, then it would have put me much more at ease. Even if he believes that all that he has written could have been true, still he should have explained that historical sources do not necessarily support such a hypothesis. Take for example, the novel NOTHING IS BLUE by Biman Nath. Now that, forms very nicely a story from history and without trying to stretch historical facts to the accommodate the story. It does the reverse, and as a result everything fits in very nicely. Or take a more renowned example, the historical novels by Saradindu Bandyapadhyay, or those by Bankimchandra. Maybe this author should have had more inspiration from these authors than from Shiva!
On the whole, I have no problems in accepting this work as an entertaining read, although a rather short and quick one. The storyline is sufficiently simple and straightforward to follow, and you can even make guesses that will be proved right later on. A work of fiction to keep you engaged for the better part of a day in a lighthearted read.
2 comments:
Thanks for mentioning my novel and putting it in blue! I am glad you liked the book.
-Biman Nath
http://www.nothingisblue.com
Oh yes! The pleasure is all mine. I think that "NOTHING IS BLUE" is a wonderfully written novel with all the historical details nicely in place. I love reading such kinds of books.
I thank you for writing such a wonderful book!
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