One of the few happy consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdown is that people have become aware of Indian folk art. As crafts bazaars and melas, crafts emporiums etc., have had to shut shop willy-nilly, increasingly the sale of crafts has moved online.
While choosing a book to review, the title of this one quickly grabbed my attention. Having been to the Kumbh Mela in Ujjain a few years back, I was curious to know how this picture-book had portrayed the largest of the religious gatherings in India.
Let’s start with the captivating cover. Designed and illustrated by Sharanya Kunnath in a rather unusual blue and red combination, the cover displays the loveliness of Indian temple art.
The author, Sudha G. Tilak, says that temple visits were a huge part of her summer vacations and those visits taught her to enjoy the stories and art forms of India, both of which she has described in her book.
These two ‘utterly, butterly delicious’ books form part of a series, with a third one, The Royal Tournament, to follow. Their purpose is to introduce the ‘Famous Five’ of the Dwapara Yuga to the young readers today with their own perspective.
This has never happened to me before. I got two books to review and both were about the perpetual state of warfare between the devas and asuras that is the popular template for so many stories of Hindu mythology. It has always reminded me of the Indo-Pak.
The Kathasaritsagara, which was compiled by the Brahmin Somadeva in Sanskrit in 11th century Kashmir, remains one of the great compendia of the world’s stories, drawing as it does from several lost and fragmentary extant texts from earlier centuries. Scholars.