This book is from my favorite series – Ramayana by Shubha Vilas . I was eagerly waiting for this book as the snippet at the end of book 2 was intriguing.
Stolen Hope is the third part in the series – Ramayana- The Game of Life.
When Subha Vilasji asked me if I was interested in reviewing the book, I felt happy that he asked and felt honored when I received a signed copy of the book with a personal message.
I have already posted the review for Part 1 – Rise Of The Sun Prince and Part 2 – Shattered Dreams.The first part talks about the time before Lord Rama was born to the time of His wedding to Sita. The second part describes the preparation for crowning Lord Rama as the King, Kaikeyi’s plot , the trio – Rama , Lakshmana and Sita leaving the country to live in the forest.
Unlike many other series of books, you can start reading this book straight away without the feel that you are missing something from the first two parts. The author rightly says – When you bite into a cake,it hardly matters where you begin.
In this book, there is a Story So Far section where you can read the synopsis of the first two books in this series.
The story starts with King Danda violating the modesty of Araja the beautiful daughter of Sage Sukracharya.Enraged by this deed, the sage curses that his kingdom would into the place that houses animal-like humans and become home to the fiercest jungle humans ever known.Within minutes the glorious kingdom turned into a great jungle called Dandakaranya,
The book ends with Lord Rama meeting Sabari and she handing over a map to the brothers to get to the wonder monkeys in the Kishkinda forest who would be the instruments in helping Rama rescue Sita.
In between this,the trio – Rama , Lakshmana and Sita encounter a whole lot of hardships and demons and monsters of various sizes and shapes. The brothers find their way through the forest and also meet a lot of Sages, many of whom have been eagerly waiting for the brothers to arrive and free them of the various hardships that the demons have been putting them through.With each encounter with the demons, Rama makes sure that Sita does not see the gore of the war .
13 years in the forest moves seemingly smooth when catastrophe strikes .One of the main characters in this series is Surpanaka who is the trigger for the big war and the destruction of Ravana .
Lord Rama acts as the pillar of moral and emotional support all through the journey but when Sita is abducted,it becomes Lakshmana’s turn to take over the role of the Elder brother.
The brothers go in search of Sita and look forward to meeting the wonder monkeys who would help them find Sita.
This book too has some life lesson charts and the ones that I found interesting are – Science of giving feedback,Reasons why Rama followed the golden deer in spite of knowing it was Maricha,10 reasons why Sita threw the blade of grass in front of Ravana,Maturely dealing with impulsive conflicts in relationships,dying for a cause.
Some of the philosophies from this book…
- Confidence turns into confusion when predictability turns into variation.
- Being a judge is a risky affair;surely someone will judge your judgement.
- By acceptance ,pain transforms into will power to fly and by non acceptance it transmutes into a helpless cocoon to die.
- Desire is the real identity of a person
- A follower’s level of motivation is directly proportional to the leader’s level of involvement.
These are in reference [foot notes] on the incidence in the story. But even when you read them as ‘stand-alone’ versions, it makes a lot of sense!
What I really liked about this book is
- As with the other books, I enjoyed the author’s foot note. I learnt a lot about the various God’s and Sages.Some of the sub stories were new to me and felt enlightened on reading them.
- The simple language and the ease of understanding the flow of the story- It is really nice that such a great epic is narrated in a simple way yet the essence is fully preserved in the narration.
- The valuable life lessons seen as snippets of philosophy is definitely a must read which forms a platform to understand and deal with various situations in our life.
Do get a copy of this book .I am sure you will enjoy it as much as I did..
I have just finished part 3 of this series and I am eargely waiting for the 4th part where Rama will meet Hanuman and Sugriva.The sneak peak into part 4 has certainly kindled my curiosity..
About the author :
Subha Vilas is a spiritual
seeker and a motivational speaker.He conducts leadership seminars and
addresses the need of top level management in Corporate hoses through
thought provoking seminars on themes such as ‘Secrets of lasting
relationships’,Soul curry to stop worry’,Work-life balance’ etc.
He
also interacts with youth in premier institutions and inspires them to
lead a life based on deeper human values.He also plays a role as a guide
to school children and teaches them foundational values through
masterful story telling.
Get in touch with the author on Facebook
This 312 paged book is published by JAICO BOOKS and it costs INR 299/-.
Happy Browsing….
