Tuesday 24 March 2015

Mystery Box: Guess the Theme of Amish's New Book!








A while back, the folks at Westland sent me a mystery box and asked me to guess the theme of Amish's new book. It took me a while to get this post up, so sorry about that! My camera's memory card had acted up and it took some tinkering by a techie pal to recover these pics (the box and it's contents are at my parents' place now). Anyway, that was the long explanation...

I am a huge fan of Amish's previous book series- The Shiva Trilogy. Those books are so amazing. I highly recommend those to anyone who is interested in history, mythology and interesting new takes on age-old myths and legends. 

So, anyway, I read and re-read this scroll and looked at the little brass charm that came with the box and made the following guesses: 
  • The sun = Fairly obvious, the Suryavanshis. So, the book will have something to do with the Suryavanshi  dynasty. 
  • Now, the two other symbols- one which looks like a fish, reminds me the Vedic period but also of Lord Vishnu.. his Matsya Avatar (fish avatar) to be very precise.. So, I guessed that perhaps Amish's new book will be about the Suryavanshis and also about Lord Vishnu?!  
  • I'll be totally honest and say that the first symbol- the two lines and the stick figure/arrow-like thing- didn't make sense to me.. I thought maybe it was a river.. but then why the stick figure/arrow? 
So, my final guess was:
Suryavanshi + Vishnu = the MOST FAMOUS Suryavanshi avatar of Lord Vishnu = Ram!

That was pretty much the extent of my guesswork! :)

Go here to see the symbols properly decoded... (I was close..) :)

The name of Amish's new book is Scion of Ikshvaku. Go here for the book trailer. 

Seriously looking forward to this book.. Ram is a complex character whose actions and motivations have not always made sense to me.. so, I am curious to see how Amish humanizes him!


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