Book Review: Shattered Dreams

About the book:

Shattered Dreams is the sequel to the national bestseller, Rise of the Sun Prince, in the new spiritual and motivational series Ramayana – The Game of Life.

Twelve joyful years have passed in Ayodhya since the wedding of Rama and Sita at the end of Book 1.

Now, in Shattered Dreams, Shubha Vilas narrates the riveting drama of Rama’s exile. Through tales of Rama’s unwavering and enigmatic persona, the book teaches us how to handle reversals positively; through Bharata’s actions, it teaches us to handle temptation; and through Sita’s courage, to explore beyond our comfort zone. 

This complicated family drama provides deep insights on how human relationships work and how they fail. With Valmiki’s Ramayana as its guiding light, Shattered Dreams deftly entwines poetic beauty from theKamba Ramayana and Ramacharitramanas, as well as folk philosophy from the Loka Pramana tales, to demonstrate how the ancient epic holds immediate relevance to modern life. Experience the ancient saga of the Ramayana like never before.

My View:

I haven’t read the first book from the author, but going by the information the book has the journey of Rama, his birth and the way he was trained under Vishwamitra and the most divine part of Ramayana – his wedding with goddess Sita. We are from the 90s, we grew up watching Ramayana (without the hype and overrating), but no matter how it is explained again, I am all ears. Mainly because Ramayana doesn't have many people like Mahabharatha (that’s right, I just cannot remember names). Ramayana is one such epic where in you don’t have to possess any love for religion or spiritual power – not that it teaches you to be right, but at least it tells one that good always triumphs over the evil.  

This book – Shattered dreams tells about why Rama was the one who was enthroned and not the others. I always thought that Rama was the favorite son of King Dasaratha; and author suggests the same too. But there has to be evil in the form of “shaitaan kahan hai toh bagal main” types; author explains the way Kaikeyi and Manthara ladies plan up against King Dasaratha, convince him that why it is right and already decided that Rama, has to face exile. Every chapter tells the readers, why the decisions were right and the footnotes are often extension of the same to readers on incorporating them in their life.

Doing everything in the context of quoting Dharma, how far is it correct? Author expresses thoughts as to why Rama was the “right” adhering to his father’s decision of sending him away and that in turn made everyone quote him as “right”. Meanwhile is it OK not to listen to family’s advice about not to not entering the agnathavasa, stay at the kingdom and fulfill the needs of the people?

Shattered dreams gets into the “I will tell you so many things in the name of righteous” at times. Al though special mention about the footnotes, most of the times these conveyed about the current scenario of the chapter and how the same should to adapted in our life. But at times, the annotations don’t even relate to the chapter in discussion and just randomly quotes about how a leader should be, what he has to do but was Rama a good leader? Was it OK to let go all his disciples in the kingdom, to let them be in ‘not-so-good-leadership’ just because he had to be right? I don’t think so.

Neat narration, crisp language, and a bit stretchy; apart from the beautiful cover (which does not include Sita or Lakshmana) the footnotes have footsteps in the form of paduka. Now when you flip the pages very fast you can actually see these padukas move ahead. Most interesting find from the book has to be the reason behind the beautiful peacocks having various shades in their feathers. Now, I will not tell you guys why, for that please pick the book and have a good weekend read! 

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