Book Review of Ramayana-The game of life: Shattered Dreams

Title: Ramayana - The Game of Life - Book 2 - Shattered Dreams
Series: Fiction
Author: Shubha Vilas
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Jaico Publishing House
Release Date: January 23, 2015
Format: Paperback
Pages: 404

About the Author:

Shubha Vilas, a qualified engineer and Patent attorney is a spiritual seeker and a motivational speaker he is highly sought after by CEOs and other senior leaders in corporate world for his seminars of leadership etc. For this series he has used multiple versions of Ramayana like Valmiki Ramayana, Kamba Ramayana from Tamil, Ramcharitmanas by Tulsi Das and folk takes in India prevalent in various parts of India

Blurb:

Shattered Dreams is the sequel to the national bestseller, Rise of the Sun Prince, in the new spiritual and motivational series Ramayana - The Game of Life. Twelve joyful years have passed in Ayodhya since the wedding of Rama and Sita at the end of Book 1.

Now, in Shattered Dreams, Shubha Vilas narrates the riveting drama of Rama’s exile. Through tales of Rama’s unwavering and enigmatic persona, the book teaches us how to handle reversals positively; through Bharata’s actions, it teaches us to handle temptation; and through Sita’s courage, to explore beyond our comfort zone. This complicated family drama provides deep insights on how human relationships work and how they fail.

With Valmiki’s Ramayana as its guiding light, Shattered Dreams deftly entwines poetic beauty from the Kamba Ramayana and Ramacharitramanas, as well as folk philosophy from the Loka Pramana tales, to demonstrate how the ancient epic holds immediate relevance to modern life. Experience the ancient saga of the Ramayana like never before.

First of all I would like to thank the Blogadda team for selecting me to review this book and keeping patience for getting late review due to some urgency, which I couldn’t avoid.

Belonging to a devoted religious Hindu family, where I had access to both Ramayana and RamCharitManas at home from childhood, when I got the opportunity to review the 2^nd part of Ramayana series by Shubha Vilas, I was very curious to know, how much differently he has penned down the story and how much reference he has taken from the earlier books.   

Finally when I got the book, I found that the cover of book was very impressive, and as I turn the pages of book, there were footnotes in almost every pages of books, which were interesting to read and were having practical relevance to the modern world also, some of few I would like to cite here:

17^th : Being a genius is not so much about knowing everything as much as it is about knowing when to admit to the self that ‘I don’t know’ and seek guidance.

41th on page no. 62: When your actions boomerang as reactions, rather than wondering who threw at you, you should wonder when you threw it.

43rd on page no. 63: Doubting one’s own Ability makes one modest, whereas doubting others’ ability makes one haughty.

53rd on page no. 100: the decision to make decisions has to be made in moments of strength, not in moments of weakness.

41th on page no. 314: Forgiveness is the fragrance that the sandalwood tree leaves on an axe that cuts it, the stone that grinds it and in the smoke that burns it.

The author has taken reference from Ramayana and Ramcharitmanas both, but what he has done different is, he has discovered the finer details of characters and events, which were less expressed in the previous books.

Story starts from when Dasaratha decides to coronate Rama and it ends at when Rama, Lakshmana and Sita head towards Dandakaranya after spending the first year of their exile in the mighty Chitrakoot Mountain. Many interesting facts like why 14 years of vanvas, why Dhasratha was called by that name were explained in the book, which I came to know by reading this book only.

Author has tried to relate the ancient story in modern context using nice descriptions of various events and scenes and he has succeed in his efforts in putting various social, personal, management mantra,  which are very relevant and motivational, if we try to follow them, some of them I find worth mentioning like : Six Anarthas to Conquer, Triple Virtues, How does one handle reversals in life, Four roles played by a self-confident wife, Six solutions to success,  Rama’s Five management mantras etc.

I would not like to spoil the interest of the readers by telling the whole story here, but one thing is clear, this book will surely engage the new generation who doesn’t have time and will to read the original books by Valmiki and Tulsidas.

My rating: 3.5/5

Dislikes: Sometimes pace of story was slower, due to much description of scenes.

   

Likes: Overall a simple in language, nice motivational, self-help book, which tells the new prospective of epic Ramayana story and connects it to our practical modern life and world. A must read for mythological lovers.

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