The Shiva Trilogy

Shiva! The Mahadev. The God of Gods. Destroyer of Evil. Passionate lover. Fierce warrior. Consummate dancer. Charismatic leader. All-powerful, yet incorruptible. Quick wit, accompanied by an equally quick and fearsome temper.

Over the centuries, no foreigner who came to India – conqueror, merchant, scholar, ruler, traveller – believed that such a great man could possibly have existed in reality. They assumed that he must have been a mythical God, whose existence could be possible only in the realms of human imagination. Unfortunately, this belief became our received wisdom.

But what if we are wrong? What if Lord Shiva was not a figment of a rich imagination, but a person of flesh and blood? Like you and me. A man who rose to become godlike because of his karma. That is the premise on which the Shiva Trilogy is based. It interprets the rich mythological heritage of ancient India, blending fiction with historical fact.

This work is therefore a tribute to Lord Shiva and the lesson that his life teaches us. A lesson lost in the depths of time and ignorance. A lesson, that all of us can rise to be better people. A lesson, that there exists a potential god in every single human being. All we have to do is listen to ourselves.

Myths are nothing but jumbled memories of a true past. A past buried under mounds of earth and ignorance.

This trilogy is based on this fundamental premise.

I believe that the Hindu gods were not mythical beings or a figment of a rich imagination.

I believe that they were creatures of flesh and blood, like you and me.

I believe that they achieved godhood through their karma, their deeds.

I believe that the words Vishnu and Mahadev are not individual names. They are in fact titles, given to those persons who are the greatest of leaders, who become god-like.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening - Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there's some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

The Road Not Taken - Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Silver - Walter de la Mare

Slowly, silently, now the moon
Walks the night in her silver shoon;
This way, and that, she peers, and sees
Silver fruit upon silver trees;
One by one the casements catch
Her beams beneath the silvery thatch;
Couched in his kennel, like a log,
With paws of silver sleeps the dog;
From their shadowy coat the white breasts peep
Of doves in a silver-feathered sleep;
A harvest mouse goes scampering by,
With silver claws, and silver eye;
And moveless fish in the water gleam,
By silver reeds in a silver stream.

Daffodils - William Wordsworth

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling leaves in glee;
A poet could not be but gay,
In such a jocund company!
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

Jai Ho! And Ho Jaye!

Bizarre. Overloaded. Technicolor. Chaotic. Golmaal. Jugaad. Chalta Hai.
You'd run out of words long before you'd run out of an India that all those words describe. And in not just one language, but many. Including SMS.

India is not a contradiction in terms. It sets the terms for all contradiction. It's the world's biggest and most energetic democracy, where people chuck out government as frequently as they chuck out their garbage. IT's a byword for immense wealth and terrible poverty, a realm of billionaires and beggards, the Mha Kumbh mela and mega malls, tantrics and Twitter.

Have you ever seen a large 'Commit No Nuisance' sign and a line of men standing under it and peeing? A state-of-the-art expressway with cows roaming across it? A train with more people sitting on the roofs of the coaches than passengers inside? A booze shop advertising 'Chilled Bear Served Hear'?

As we celebrate the 61st year of our raucous and irrepressible Republic, we invite you to share the sights and the sounds, the scenes and the surprises, that you feel make India, India. Join us in what we hope will be the biggest exercise ever in collective story-telling: A Day in the Life of India.

Jai Ho! And Ho Jaye!

The Best Is Yet To Be

For better or worse, through thick and thin,
I'll be there by your side
sharing the laughter and the tears
through life's uncertain ride.

We don't know what the future has
in store for you and me
but this I know, without a doubt,
the best is yet to be.