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Tuesday, March 10, 2015

Book Review Part 3- Ramayana: The Game of Life - (Shattered Dreams)

When I recall Last time when I did read Ramayana ?-was the class 6th. It was introduced in our curriculum as that time as a complementary of subject Hindi. At that time what we extracted from that book (Sankshipt Ramayana ie Ramayana in short) was the story and adventure of Rama. I think we certainly failed to extract the meaning of our basic things book wanted to convey. Major factor may be our Age. We can't expect ourselves to understand much about life in our standard 6th.

Since my childhood I always wanted to study Ramayana and Bhagwad Geeta to understand the deep philosophy both epics wanted to convey to our society.

There were several factors due which till now I was unable to read any of them. I sincerely want to thank Blogadda for their book review program. I got this book from Blogadda within a week after applying for its review.

This is part 2 of the series Ramayan from Shubha Vilas. Before getting the book I was wondering why the title of book is 'Game of life ' as well as shattered Dreams. Before starting this book I thought "Should I go for the first book or Just start this second part?" I thought I already know much of the Ramayana, so just start the second part at first.

The book starts from the Dashrath's restlessness which leads to his decision of coronation of Rama in hurry. So here we can say that dream of Dashratha was to see Rama as King of Ayodhya. This very dream was in everyone's eye belonging to Ayodhaya except Manthra. And the book ends with shattered dreams of many people when Rama got exiled to Forest for 14 years.
Between these events the writer successfully showed us the Game of life. Game of life title is justified because no one knows when you will face high or low in your life. It's just like you are feeling today on the top of the world and the very next moment you can feel worthless.
Coronation and exile of Rama depicts the same for Rama, Dashratha, Kaushlaya, Sita etc. And same thing can be said about Keikayi when Bharat refused to be king and marched towards Jungle to bring Rama back to Ayodhya.
What I like most about the book is Footnotes. These footnotes provide us clear thinking what philosophy a certain event/author wants to tell us.
These footnotes make this book unique and put this book in a different category. Following are some of important extract fetched from the book.

  • Duty of 
  1. Father
  2. Son
  3. Mother
  4. Husband
  5. Wife
  6. Brother
  7. King 
  8. Teacher
  9. Student
  10. Follower etc
  • Management of
  1. Stress
  2. Anger
  3. Joy
  4. Sorrow
  5. Confidence
  6. Desire etc
And last but not the least one of beautiful line I read was- "All women should be respected and taken care of. Respect towards them is root of all the good happens in society and disrespect towards them is the root of all evil in society."


As I haven't read other Ramayana like Valmiki's or Tulsidas. I cannot say how much engaging those other epics are.

But Game of life by Shubha Vilas Is certainly an interesting read. It keeps you wanting to know more what is going to happen next despite knowledge the story of Ramayana.

Despite Ramayana being a religious book, I would recommend this to any age/gender/race/religion .
Cover: 

Name of Book: Ramayana: The Game of Life -(Shattered Dreams)- Book 2 
Rating : 5 
It is available on amazon. Purchase here

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