Featured Post

[Book Review] Jasmine Builds on Shifting Sands: A Self-help Fiction

  I recently bought this book copy for a read and review. Name: [Book Review] Jasmine Builds on Shifting Sands: A Self-help Fiction Auth...

Sunday, September 25, 2011

The Secret of the Nagas – A Review



Author: Amish Tripathi
Pages: 414
List Price: Rs. 295
Publishing Year: 2011

     This book is second in the three book series titled ‘The Shiva Trilogy’.The books in this trilogy are: 
  •           Book 1: The Immortals of Meluha
  •      Book 2: The Secret of the Nagas
  •           Book 3: The Oath of the Vayuputras
 I remember reading the first book in the series - The Immortals of Meluha (read my review here: http://laghusikarwar.blogspot.com/2010/10/immortals-of-meluha-review.html) after I read a small excerpt about it on a small HT feature page. Ever since I finished the first book, I was keenly waiting for the next part in the three book series to release and to answer the question in some of your minds – yes I did pre-order the book online and received it well before most others got it.

 It isn't often that one comes across a book by written by an Indian author with a sequel. It is even rarer to see the sequel doing just as good or even better than its predecessor.  The rarest thing in Indian fiction today is to find one good work of fiction based on Indian mythology. Amish Tripathi brings all of these together in one successful package.

This book begins right from where ‘The Immortals of Meluha’ ended and moves on at a brisk pace. The narration is as crisp and clear as its predecessor. This book, like its predecessor, moves on at a breathless pace; keeping the reader glued and almost goading him to keep turning the pages. However, when compared to the first book, this book is not the most compelling read, but even then I could not stop myself from reading as fast as I can to find what ‘Shiva’, Sati’ and the ever mysterious ‘Naga’ will be doing next. 

The first book had better narration of scenes and scenarios which would allow people like me to imagine a screenplay in front of my eyes as I read on. This book does give the opinion that it is being written by a new author. It is of course unpleasing to read lines/narration with words such as ‘India’ mentioned, but then one can always choose to ignore them and move on with the overall story building at great speed to keep you engrossed.

As we move on we see the transformation of a man confused of his destiny in the first book, to a confident self believing individual. True to the title, the focus of the book gradually shifts towards the purported ‘evil’ ‘Nagas’ and ‘Shivas’ journey to find the elusive truth. 

This book has everything from pain to suffering to joy to motherhood to loss to survival to fatherhood to death to revenge to betrayal to mystery to science to bravery to astonishment to belief

Amish has a wonderful yet very simple way of telling the story. The language is pretty simple and the book is definitely worth reading. You can read more about the book on the official website

You can read one chapter of the book from the official website here:

To sum up, ‘The Secret of the Nagas’ continues on the footsteps of its predecessor and makes for a good read. It certainly could have been better, but this doesnot in anyway undermine this book. It should be enjoyable to most people irrespective of caste, creed or religion. As always, you read and decide! My final verdict: 4 on 5.

Following great online deals are available - Flipkart, Infibeam, Landmark, Crossword.

This review is a part of the http://blog.blogadda.com/2011/05/04/indian-bloggers-book-reviews" target="_blank">Book Reviews Program at  http://www.blogadda.com">BlogAdda.com. Participate now to get free books!

6 comments:

  1. thanks for post waiting for some good review got it now.

    brand shop

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Laghu Sikarwar

    I write to you on behalf of The Viewspaper (www.theviewspaper.net) which is India's largest youth paper and the 5th largest media company on Facebook.

    We are organizing the World's Largest Tweet-A-Thon! and would like to invite you as a panelist for the same.

    From American political journalists in the 1950s, to The Economist magazine not so long ago; speculation has run rife about India and whether we will survive as a nation.

    Poverty. Corruption. Terrorism. Disease. Currency woes. We’ve got it all, and more. We’ve been written off, doomsdayed, delegitimized – but we keep coming back! What is the root of this appetite for adversity, this solid resilience?

    It is our nation’s optimism. No matter how much you bring her down, India feels up!

    A first of its kind initiative, the #IFeelUp Tweetathon is a 3-day virtual conference, which delights in the irrepressible state of the nation, in spite of its laundry list of issues. Over 72 hours, we’ll be bringing in 400 panelists for non-stop discussion, and that’s where you come in.

    We would like to invite you as a panelist for a 30 minute session wherein you can participate from any part of the world.

    If you're interested, kindly email us your contact information so that we could provide you with more details about the event.

    I look forward to hearing from you.

    Regards

    Garima Obrah
    The Viewspaper

    ReplyDelete
  3. Amish is a fabulous story teller. Every scene brilliantly written. Won't talk much about the story as it may reveal the secrets. But yes, you will surely love the final part if you enjoyed the first 2 parts. I didn't expected the end to be the way it was, but it is justifiable. Too much detailed description sometimes make you feel to skip it and directly jump to the action part. The secrets revealed hold some logic and are not introduced just for the sake of making it a thriller.

    ReplyDelete
  4. > Behind the old "Iron Curtain" there was a disease recognized that is
    deceitfully diagnosed to be schizophrenia in the West. It was called "shamans'
    disease" and is caused by scar tissue in the parasympathetic (muscarinic)
    nervous system.
    > This nervous system is called "muscarinic" after the hallucinogenic drug
    muscarine, found in the fly animita mushroom; and, muscarine doesn't cross the
    blood brain barrier. It works by exciting the whole muscarinic nervous system
    and thereby overriding the inhibitory neurons in the brain. But, it is unpopular
    in the West due to the way it excites the digestive system.
    > This has been kept secret by those who cash in on this secrecy, occult
    secrecy. In yoga, the plexuses of the muscarinic nervous system are called
    chakras, presented to the common people as "spiritual wheels of light along the
    spine", but they are not in the spine, they are the major plexuses of the
    parasympathetic nervous system in the body.
    > This muscarinic nervous system stimulation is called "kundalini" in yoga,
    and when yoga students reach the degree where they are allowed to know the truth
    about their own bodies they must sign contracts of secrecy, even that they have
    signed a contract of secrecy.
    > So, your children may have only acquired scar tissue in their
    parasympathetic nervous systems, which can be treated medically other ways, but,
    there are dopamine blockers to be sold, and, special interests want to keep
    their profitable secrets.
    > Of course one international organization is behind this, a well known
    secret society, whose "temple" represents the human body, and whose "holy of
    holies" represents where the largest muscarinic nerve, the vagus nerve, emerges
    from the brain into the body, the nasopharynx.
    > LSD used to be used to carry out a horrible treatment called the
    "Clockwork Orange" treatment. Here the victim has over 50% of the brain awakened
    for use. It is called by "Grof Transpersonal", "perinatal matrix three", and
    here the victim experiences all the sufferings of people shown in a film by
    going backward and forward in time to inhabit each and every body shown,
    experiencing their torments as real as life.
    > Today this is being done by exciting the parasympathetic nervous system by
    "waterboarding". It was mentioned in an article about this that efforts were
    made to have the water irritate the nasopharynx, where the main trunk of the
    vagus nerve emerges from the brain, down into the body.
    > Crucifixion also causes so much muscarinic nervous system stimulation that
    the victim will body switch into everyone he knows. God knows everyone, so it is
    known that Jesus Christ is in you and I and everyone this way.
    > When a "schizophrenic" patient has more that 50% of the brain awakened for
    use (it shows on an MRI) they are catatonic, but out body switching into every
    one and every character in every movie they ever saw. Less severe schizophrenic
    symptoms occur with brain use percentages less than 50%.
    > The solution, to establish better treatment for our children, is to spread
    this knowledge to common public knowledge.
    >

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hey keep posting such good and meaningful articles.

    ReplyDelete