My obsession with the gods is almost as old as my fascination with the written word. At the age of fifteen, I wrote a short novella as a project for our Creative Writing course in school – a story of about twenty thousand words about the interaction of God, man and Hades and I must say that that seminal idea forms the crux of this story. I was disappointed with this short novella and felt at the time that I had done terrible injustice to a potentially beautiful story (though my teacher at the time was suitably impressed and wrote ‘Gripping narrative!’ at the end).
But to give credit where it is due, this idea is, in fact, born again from the concept of historical fiction I encountered not more than two years ago. I read Phillipa May Gregory’s The Other Boleyn Girl followed by the Game of Thrones series and then the Empire of the Moghul series by the husband-wife duo which goes by the pen name of Alex Rutherford. I realized that such stories harnessed the image and the back stories of all the heroes and historical figures we have in our minds and having bolstered them, feed them right back to us. The greatest limitation of an author is to get his readers to imagine what he writes – to see his world as he sees it – and with heroes (and gods) already known to readers, the task – though tricky – is somewhat easier.
The birth of this novel was in a dream. I saw the image of a man, a monkey and a demon, and they simply sat beside each other looking at me silently. I felt as if they were waiting for me to re-imagine them and tell their story again. After all, all our epics and prayers are but stories written to bind us in a particular faith; all I have done is to give these characters a new story to make their home in.
I have to say here I had no intention of hurting anyone’s religious sentiments. For the sake of all glorious religions in our world, I will go as far as to say that all the characters mentioned in this book are entirely fictional; yet if you find your faith shaken by this story, then maybe your faith was never strong enough to begin with.
This novel, if studied by a historian, would perhaps prove to be terribly anachronistic. I have used techniques of warfare that range from ancient Roman to Mughal. The army structures are modelled on the manner of the Mughals, simply because it seemed a more colorful and intricate way of organizing an army to me. I have gleaned information on wars ranging from Greek conquests to Carthigian, Roman conflicts to Mongol successes to the Mughal wars and finally, to the more recent World Wars. And though you may not find it explicit perhaps, all the battles in this book are a mix of all my learnings as I studied warfare.
This story is just the beginning of the legend of Ramm. I realized, as I began to write it, to cram it all into one book would be a grave injustice to the reader. There are questions left unanswered in this book, but rest assured they shall be answered in the next. So having read this, I implore you to be at peace. Your hero, Ramm, and his concomitant villains are safe in my hands.
Until he returns again…
But to give credit where it is due, this idea is, in fact, born again from the concept of historical fiction I encountered not more than two years ago. I read Phillipa May Gregory’s The Other Boleyn Girl followed by the Game of Thrones series and then the Empire of the Moghul series by the husband-wife duo which goes by the pen name of Alex Rutherford. I realized that such stories harnessed the image and the back stories of all the heroes and historical figures we have in our minds and having bolstered them, feed them right back to us. The greatest limitation of an author is to get his readers to imagine what he writes – to see his world as he sees it – and with heroes (and gods) already known to readers, the task – though tricky – is somewhat easier.
The birth of this novel was in a dream. I saw the image of a man, a monkey and a demon, and they simply sat beside each other looking at me silently. I felt as if they were waiting for me to re-imagine them and tell their story again. After all, all our epics and prayers are but stories written to bind us in a particular faith; all I have done is to give these characters a new story to make their home in.
I have to say here I had no intention of hurting anyone’s religious sentiments. For the sake of all glorious religions in our world, I will go as far as to say that all the characters mentioned in this book are entirely fictional; yet if you find your faith shaken by this story, then maybe your faith was never strong enough to begin with.
This novel, if studied by a historian, would perhaps prove to be terribly anachronistic. I have used techniques of warfare that range from ancient Roman to Mughal. The army structures are modelled on the manner of the Mughals, simply because it seemed a more colorful and intricate way of organizing an army to me. I have gleaned information on wars ranging from Greek conquests to Carthigian, Roman conflicts to Mongol successes to the Mughal wars and finally, to the more recent World Wars. And though you may not find it explicit perhaps, all the battles in this book are a mix of all my learnings as I studied warfare.
This story is just the beginning of the legend of Ramm. I realized, as I began to write it, to cram it all into one book would be a grave injustice to the reader. There are questions left unanswered in this book, but rest assured they shall be answered in the next. So having read this, I implore you to be at peace. Your hero, Ramm, and his concomitant villains are safe in my hands.
Until he returns again…
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