Review: CHAKRAVYUH - Through the Eyes of the Young Warrior

CHAKRAVYUH - Through the Eyes of the Young Warrior by Aniket S. Sharma
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

“...the secret of the Great Stories is that they have no secrets. The Great Stories are the ones you have heard and want to hear again. The ones you can enter anywhere and inhabit comfortably. They don’t deceive you with thrills and trick endings. They don’t surprise you with the unforeseen. They are as familiar as the house you live in. Or the smell of your lover’s skin. You know how they end, yet you listen as though you don’t. In the way that although you know that one day you will die, you live as though you won’t. In the Great Stories you know who lives, who dies, who finds love, who doesn’t. And yet you want to know again.

That is their mystery and their magic.”
― Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things

“Chakravyuh” by Aniket Sharma is another one in the long list of Mahabharat retellings. The great epic inspired many authors and poets and it is perfectly alright to try interpreting it in their own way.

The story ios already known but the difference is that it is told from the PoV of Abhimanyu, son of Arjun. He is a young warrior and the tale is told through his eyes. The book starts after the Agyatvas ends.

Language of book is plain and simple and it fails to do justice to the epic Mahabharat. The book reads like a summary of the great epic and it is told in plain, boring and simplistic way. The nuances of characters is not brought out through dialogues.

The attempt by author is valiant but it miserably falls short. 2/ 5 stars.


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