Mythology can be rendered in other credible ways as well and this is exactly what Amish Tripathi endeavours to do in his popular fiction. Tripathi demonstrates how myths can become raw material for popular consumption. He demonstrates how the incredibility of myths could be made credible. He infuses modern day science to explain the irrational. He depicts an ancient India fantastic yet realistic.
Being a student of literature who felt offended when I came across Macaulay’s perspective of Indian literature as “abounding with kings thirty feet high and reigns thirty thousand years long” and “seas of treacle and seas of butter”; rationalising Indian mythology, or erasing the absurdities in a representation seems to be a writing back against labels of superstitions. But from a critical perception, I hold that in such a recreation and attempt to humanise and rationalise a god, Tripathi seems to have overlooked the fact that the end product, Shiva, no longer remains a god but only a hero. Indian mythologies unlike its western counterparts feature gods, goddesses in their focal roles. Tripathi in an attempt to rationalise divinity omits it entirely. His Shiva conforms to the western mythical heroes like Hercules, Beowulf, Achilles or King Arthur. It could be stated that the novels primarily being popular fiction, an industry
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In Immortals of Meluha, Shiva is called the Mahadev long before he believes he is the successor of Lord Rudra . He is the Mahadev in name long before he accepts that he is in actuality. In other words, he learns to live up to the mask he wears. He submits to the idea before fully believing it. The man therefore becomes the myth. Tripathi also develops the character of Shiva keeping the popular notions of the deity intact. In other words he develops this alternate tale keeping the mask of the mythic Shiva as the