Review: War of Lanka

War of Lanka by Amish Tripathi
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Hooter: The epic battle of Ramayana in Amish Tripathi's style

Amish Tripathi was a phenomenon when he first released his Shiva trilogy - a unique perspective into mythology, making the Gods more real as he tried researching into these and adding a prism of logic whilst making the stories more relatable for the newer generations. Now that formula is been made common place through all his series including this one. The War of Lanka is the focal point of the previous three parallel stories in the Ram Chandra series - all coming together.

He does the same as he introduces the various characters and stories that lead to the run up to the battle and the final victory - no surprises there as he retells this epic in his inimitable style. The writing gets repetitive, he tiptoes around character depth of all the main protagonists not wanting to antagonise the wider readership I guess leaving all the main characters in 2D whilst he takes liberties with the others where probability of controversy would be less.

If I had to summarise the book, I'd use Amish's favourite phrase in the book - "O Lord Rudra! Have Mercy!" Have lost count the number of times that phrase is uttered. If this is your first tryst with Amish's style, you'll love it but if you have been following his series, there isnt anything to new to expect and there is now a sense of comfort and familiarity with what to expect. That said I love how his research continues to make mythologies more real and relatable. For example, the attempt that explaining how to build the bridge between Lanka and the mainland using local corals and wooden palisades and similarly a lot more epic incidents including the Pushpak viman. Though the colloq. use of bro and dudes amongst the Gods seemed a bit too out of place.

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