Review of The Secret of the Nagas...

               The Secret of the Nagas...

 

Following the unfortunate assassination of Meluha's leading scientist and the Neelkanth's much adored friend, Brahaspati, Shiva seeks to avenge him. The ostracised community of the Nagas are the supposed clan behind Brahaspati's death.

 

As the story unfolds, everything seems to be going south of what Shiva and his aids had thought of. The Vasudevs - the philosopher guides of Shiva - betray the Lord Neelkanth, or so it seems. The most innocent people appear to have turned malevolent and in turn, the Evil is not what it seemed to be.

 

The Secret of the Nagas is not a very long read and demands familiarity of the reader with the first book of the Trilogy : The Immortals of Meluha. The second book takes you through the journey of Shiva who is in search of truth and the answers to a few essential questions. On the way, he faces strange challenges and extraordinary revelations, which, with time, club together to make sense of the events.

 

The blurb of The Secret of the Nagas promises that “Fierce battles will be fought. Surprising alliances will be forged. Unbelievable secrets will be revealed…” Yes, the book does deliver all that.

 

The story

The second book begins in Ayodhya with yet another skirmish between Shiva and Sati, and the Naga, who Shiva suspects was responsible for the death of his friend, Brihaspati. Yet again, the Naga escapes. By now Shiva is obsessed with hunting down the Nagas (an ostracised community of deformed beings with extraordinary skills, power and strength), and particularly that one specific Naga.

 

Shiva, Sati and their entourage decide to leave for Varanasi, which has a large settlement of Banglas Brangas, people from the eastern part of the country and the only people who have dealings with the Nagas. Since Sati has a baby (Kartik) while in Varanasi, Shiva leaves her behind in the holy city and travels with the rest of his entourage to the land of the Brangas. He discovers that though the Brangas, too, believe in the legend of the Neelkanth and are delighted on his arrival, they are not going to reveal the whereabouts of the Nagas in a hurry. The reason is that the Nagas supply life-saving medicines to the Brangas every year, and unless Shiva can guarantee uninterrupted supply of the same they are not going to help him.

 

In the mean time, in Varanasi, Sati is on a discovery spree. She finds out that she is related to two of the Nagas. The first one is Kali, Queen of the Nagas, who turns out to be her twin sister. Because she was born with an extra pair of hands, she was deemed to be a Naga. The second Naga is Ganesh, who turns out to be Sati’s son from a previous marriage. Ganesh was born with facial deformities (which made him look like an elephant) and was, therefore, deemed a Naga. While Sati never knew about the existence of a twin sister, she had been told that her child was stillborn. The decision to abandon both Kali and Ganesh was taken by Daksha to avoid stigmatization.

 

The rest of the story moves on to the confrontation with Daksha by a devastated Sati; Shiva finding the legendary Parashuram, returning to Varanasi with him; and then discovering and (rather unhappily) reconciling to Ganesh and Kali. After some twists and turns, the entire entourage travels to the land of the Nagas, where a huge surprise awaits everyone, especially for Shiva.

I highly recommend this Trilogy of Mythological Fiction!