Blurb View: 

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.

Review: 

Ramayan and Mahabharat have been the flavours of quite a few seasons now. While some of them focus on re-telling the epics, either picking a character and exploring their perspective or choosing an episode to elaborate and fictionalise. Here comes a new genre of narrating the epics – to add spiritual and philosophical explanations of their actions and thoughts. Quite innovative and introspective it turns out to be.

Since we’re all familiar with the basic storyline of Ramayan, it doesn’t matter that I haven’t read the prequel of this book – Ramayana – Rise of the Sun Prince. Shattered Dreams – Book 2 deals with the coronation and exile of Ram. The format of the book is very unique with the story divided into nine chapters and each page carrying footnotes with insights on the happenings. I’d say the notes are much more interesting than the story itself (which we all know by heart) and could have constituted the entire book.

The book begins with Dasharath’s inner turmoil and dilemma as he faces weird nightmares and decides to step down as a king, handing over the crown to his eldest, Ram. 12 years have passed since Ram and Sita’s marriage, that’s where Book 1 ended, as I gathered. The author has delved well into Raavan’s mind as well. It’s a learning curve with a lot of practical lessons that are relevant in this age too. The language is simple and indulges you to read more into the notes, rather than the story. The analogies are easy and within everyone’s reach, no high ambitions to score in that area.

I appreciate the humongous effort of the author to research the whole of Ramayan – it’s an epic task and takes more than a lifetime. He has tried to make things simple in order to grab every reader’s attention and I must say the notes are amazing. In fact, I’d rather read the notes as a separate book than re-read Ramayan’s story each time. That’s where the book loses a little point to me. A little proofreading would have made the text much better though. Nevertheless, it’s a good effort that is going to benefit every reader in some way or the other. I’d share my favourite nuggets of gyan from the book for you –

“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.”

“The burning desire to have something is called ambition. A healthy ambition turns into a disease of greed when innocent desires turn into conscience-depleting obsessions.”

“The word mantra is a combination of two words – man, meaning mind and tra (from trayate), meaning control. Mantra literally means that which controls the mind. Mantras are subtle sound waves that soothe the subtle mind.”

“The costliest currency in the market is trust. With it, one can buy the share of confidence, which, in turn, can buy everything else. The real exchange rate of the currency of trust can be determined only during troubled markets.”

My Rating: 3.25/5

About the Author:

Shubha Vilas, a spiritual seeker and a motivational speaker, holds a degree in engineering and law with specialization in Patent Law. His leadership seminars are popular with top-level management in corporate houses. He also helps individuals deal with modern-life situations by applying the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita, Ramayana and other dharmic traditions.

Book Details:

Language: English,  Genre: Non-fiction/Religion & Philosophy

Author(s): Shubha Vilas

Publisher: Jaico Books, Year Published: 2015 January

Binding: Paperback, Edition: First, Pages: 404

ISBN-13: 978-8184955316 , ISBN-10: 8184955316

Reviewed for: BlogAdda

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