100 books like The Ramayana

That I would love a poem written/translated by Seamus Heaney did not come as a surprise to me, but that it is Beowulf, a poem/story steeped in the Germanic warrior culture and soaked in blood that enthralled me, did surprise me.

I do not remember the occasion that prompted my reading, but even as I opened the book to its Introduction, and read “...And now this is ‘an inheritance’ --/Upright, rudimentary, unshiftably planked/ In the long ago, yet willable forward...Again and again and again,” I could not put it down.

In fact, you might say, it is not the story but the voice of the poet and how he brought this ancient language and people back to life that compelled me to read on. Of course, the voice is that of the poet of “Digging,” as he traces his roots back to these unlikely ancestors.

Journeys are most often linear – Here to There – or circular – "There and Back Again." The Odyssey is actually a return leg in the most traumatic and perennial circular journey: going to war, and then, getting back. "Wily" (in modern terms, read, "sneaky," "trickster")  Odysseus left Troy a famous warrior, but takes seven years to get home. The fabulous episodes of that journey, the Cyclops, the Sirens, Scylla and Charybdis, Circe, and Calypso, the wreck in Phaeacia that leaves him bereft even of clothes, have grounded the Western imagination. But the concluding little things – the recognition scenes, the dog that dies, and the nurse who doesn't – push that epic past into a close, human Now.

Dark and violent, this twelfth-century tale of love and revenge is a compelling vision of medieval values, combining many of the tropes of later pseudo-medieval sagas – treasure, gory battles, a cloak of invisibility, sexual deception and a dragon – with the spiritual angst that the later tales miss. From Siegfried’s brief encounter with a scaly beast to the fire-and-blood blitzkrieg of the climax – a ferocious battle in the hall of Attila the Hun – the story is told with breathless passion. Whether it glamourises war, or warns against its cost, is a matter of enduring debate. The tale has certainly had its share of cranky fans, from the silent movie filmmaker Fritz Lang to Heinrich Himmler, a testament to its provocative power.

Which version to read? The Penguin edition, translated by A.T. Hatto and published in 1965, offers a very readable prose version that captures the tale’s fiery… show more.

Thousands of years and fifty reigns are dramatised in this chronicle of sixty thousand verses. Set down in the eleventh century by an engagingly grumpy Persian poet who enjoyed the odd cup of wine and fretted about his finances. In the process, he saved (as some would have it) the Persian language and culture. The resonance of his tales has endured down the centuries: traveling in Iran, I met artists who used the story of a snake-shouldered tyrant who gobbles the brains of young men as a parable for the inter-generational tensions of the mullahcracy and the trauma of the Iran-Iraq War; whilst the romance of a beautiful long-haired princess and her tower-climbing lover is the earliest recorded iteration of ‘Rapunzel’.

Which version to read: The nineteenth-century Warner brothers produced an atmospheric full translation, but for a more modern abridgment, I’d recommend The Epic of the Kings, translated by Reuben… show more.

I read the Ramayana many years ago, but I didn’t even remember Kaikeyi, which just goes to show why we really need Vaishnavi Patel’s reimagining of her life. Kaikeyi is more than the mother of Rama. In Patel’s novel, she is a powerful warrior. The chariot battle scene from early in the novel still stays vivid in my mind. Nonetheless, the reality of being a royal consort pressured to conform eventually puts Kaikeyi in her place. When she rebels, she is shunned and even vilified.

I loved rediscovering Hindu mythology while unearthing new dimensions and depth to this misjudged, maligned female progenitor of a major faith. Why are women always pushed to the side?

As an animator, I first knew of Sanjay Patel through his work at Pixar before discovering his book, Ramayana, a virtual explosion of colour and sharply-edged design, exploring traditional tales from Hindu Mythology through anything but traditional means. Would I have read these tales without the artwork dragging me in? Probably not. But I’m so glad they did, opening my eyes to a whole new world of folklore I was unaware of.

I absolutely adore stories where a seemingly innocuous vacation turns on its heels into a gripping, out-of-this-world adventure. And this book is exactly that! When Ash (Ashoka) Mistry, an Indian mythology geek who lives in England, visits his aunt and uncle in Varanasi, the holy city of the Ganges in India, strange occurrences begin to happen, and Ash discovers that heroes and monsters of Indian myths have come back to life. Top that up with one character wanting to bring back Ravana, the demon king with ten heads and the ultimate essence of evil, and you have an adventure that’s got you at the edge of your seat!

A dizzying, intoxicating, completely engrossing memoir by another poet, who’s most famous as the author of The English Patient. I always feel a little tipsy, in the best way, reading this one.

Ondaatje was born in Sri Lanka and sets out as an adult from Canada to discover the mysteries left behind by eccentric, long-lost family members in a land he loves. Newspaper articles, pictures, ghost stories, and poetry comprise this one-of-a-kind narration. When his brother pleads with him to get this family history right, you feel the weight of the request as heavy as a summer rain. 

If you already know a lot about India and are interested in an unusual insight into the role of temples in the history, culture, architecture, and myths of the subcontinent, then this is for you. It will also introduce you to thirteen writers who include journalists, academics, and authors. Each one was asked to write about one temple, recounting its origins and the mythology and history surrounding it. It’s beautifully illustrated by Mistunee Choudhury. You can enhance the experience by googling the locations. It has introduced me to some must-see places to go on my want to visit list. I visited the unforgettable temples of Khajuraho and they appear in my own book.

This book is about the most horrifying loss imaginable: the author loses her parents, her husband, and her two young sons all at once, in the tsunami in the Indian Ocean, the day after Christmas, 2004. She and her family were spending the holiday in Sri Lanka when the wave hit and overtook the jeep in which they were attempting to flee. I can’t come up with a better justification for suicide than this—she’s lost everyone; she wonders why she was spared, just to suffer these losses every minute of every hour of every day. The book is both a horror story and a testament to human strength. I assure you, you won’t be able to put it down.