The Secret of Nagas

As soon as I completed reading “The Immortals of Meluha“, immediately I started to read the sequel “The Secret of Nagas”. The Shiva Trilogy is just so interesting, that I can’t stop the temptation to continue reading it till its end.

“The Secret of Nagas” begins where “The Immortals of Meluha” ends – A Naga attack on Sati and Shiva. Shiva tries to chase the Naga, but he manages to escape showing great skills. Nagas are the people with inhuman deformities, believed to be a result of past live’s sins and hence abandoned by the society. While the events in first book took place in Meluha and ended in Swadweep, events in this book unfolded in Swadweep and ended in Dandak Forest – the Naga territory.

In First Book, Shiva’s Best Friend and Chief Scientist of Meluha, Brahaspati, was Killed in a terrorist attack assumed to be done by Nagas. In this book, Shiva is travelling to find the Nagas and revenge them. Shiva starts a Journey from Swadweep to kashi and then to Branga, and then Dandak Aranya and Finally reaches Panchvati – the Naga Capital. As Shiva travels across the ancient India, he finds out the answers to all the unsolved mysteries – the mystery behind the Nagas, the mystery behind the Maika system in Meluha, the cruel reality of Daksha- Meluhan King, the Secret of Sati’s Still-born child and death of her husband and the mystery behind the death of Brahaspati. Many new characters appeared in this book: Kartik – son of Shiva and Sati, the royal families of kingdoms in Swadweep, Royal Family of Kashi, Branga People and a few Nagas too.

In the venture, Shiva finds out that Nagas are not evil. There are incidents when the Nagas save the lives of his wife, Sati, and son, Kartik. In these incidences, a major secret about Naga Queena- Kali and Lord of Naga People- Ganesh is revealed, which keeps everyone stunned.

The chapters are woven into each other trying to keep the reader stick to the book. In every episode, a new fact reveals, new characters come to life. In few parts of the book, I felt this is unnecessary addition of events and characters in book, but later on realized those things had an impact on the happenings later on. Each Event in the book controls the Flow of the book.

The book is quite logical one and depicts the pictures of Ghats on Ganga River in Kashi, beautiful construction of  Lord Rudra’s temple in Kashi, Branga Engineering of Ship, Drealy Forest of Dandak Aranya, Technically Superb Architecture of Entrance Gate of Brangadai – Capital of Branga Land, Simple and well-built city of Panchavati. After reading the descriptions, we imagine these places very well. The battle between Parshuram and Shiva is also very well descripted.  The concept of radio waves transmission in temples depicted in the book makes us think that old temples were architectured to work as a mode of communication for priests.  Also, there is a Branga character called Bappiraj, resembling the BappiDa in Bollywood with all his gold.

The Secret of Nagas is a mythological saga blended with fictional drama. Amish have done an outstanding job in imagining the whole concept of Shiva Trilogy, by blending the mythological characters in fascinating Bollywood -style story. The narration of the story is simple but the sentences are fragmented and dangling which do not suit the concept and layout of the book. “The Secrets of the Nagas” has some exciting moments, some unexpected revelations, some great battle scenes, but at many places, the flow of the book is slow, and makes us feel bored. This book is pale as compared to first Book of Shiva trilogy, but it has its own excitements, Mesmerizing events as well as boring and frustrating events.

Being a Hindu, the description of Goddess kali and Lord Ganesh as Naga (Characters with Deformities) was difficult for me to digest. Still, I kept in my mind that this is just a fiction with names from mythology. Over all a good and satisfying read.

But finally, at the end of this book, I am desperately eager to read the last book in Shiva Trilogy – The Oath of Vayuputras.