Amish Tripathi doesn’t want us to read his book “The Secret
of the Nagas”. He wants us to see the movie “The Secret of the Nagas” based on
the bestselling book of the same name. Well, that’s how I felt while reading
the book.
The second instalment of the Shiva Trilogy disappoints, but
not as much as the first book, The Immortals of Meluha. The author has thought
up a very interesting plot, action packed with plenty (way too plenty) of
characters. But where it fails is in the narration (again!).
Shiva is now comfortable being the Lord Neelkanth, the much
awaited saviour of India. He appears to have accepted his destiny and embarks
upon, well, saving his people from evil, which we discover, is not evil at all.
It’s really a manifestation of good in another form. “Two sides of the same
coin”, as the book proclaims till the end. Nobody is evil in this book. Not the
feared Nagas, not the arch enemies Chandravanshis, nor the notorious terrorist
Parshuram. All the evil (?) deeds they had done had logical explanations, and
they all submitted meekly to the Neelkanth once Shiva shows up at their
territories.
In spite of such a powerful plot, what makes the book
mediocre is the characters. You are not
sure what they want. Sure, they all follow Shiva on his search for evil, with a
few love stories thrown in, and too much travelling. The mother-son drama between Ganesh and Sati
was very Bollywood-ish, if you ask me. I can almost picture the grown (erstwhile
evil) son crying at his white haired mother‘s feet, while temple bells ring in
the distance and close-ups of goddesses come into view. What does Shiva really want in his heart? Did
he accept the position of the Neelkanth because he truly believed he was The
Awaited One, or because he wanted to gain the favour of Sati? You don’t find
yourself rooting for him, no you don’t. The cursing has significantly reduced,
but there we still see traces of crudeness in him.