Ravana, Draupadi to help you wrap up your vacation

With a few weeks left for the schools to reopen, utilise the last days of your vacation by engaging in some interesting and also educative activities – catch up on Indian mythology through reading stories.

Back from fun vacation trip and still have to wait for a little over three weeks before the school is back? Or there wasn’t any trip in the first place and you are too bored playing the same old running and catching (the younger kids) and chatting up with friends online (the older ones)? Sulk not, utilise the last days of your vacation by engaging in some interesting and also educative activities.

Nope, not asking you to write some essays and calling it a ‘creative’ way of passing time; nor asking you to either solve fun maths puzzle reasoning it will sharpen your analytical skills. Well, this time catch up on some interesting stories. Stories those are supposed to have laid the foundation stone for what India is today. These last weeks of vacation, learn about Indian mythology through stories.The first on the list is the 384-page book ‘The Palace of Illusions’ by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni.

The novel narrates the story of Draupadi with the protagonist herself as the narrator. Right from her birth from the sacred fire to unwillingly accepting the marriage to five princes and being accused as the cause for igniting the spark that led to the gory war of Mahabharatha, the bestseller tells you the story of Mahabahartha in a lucid language yet in the most captivating way.Second book on the list is a graphic novel ‘Ravanayan’ by the writer and artist duo Vijayendra Mohanty (writer) and Vivek Goel (artist). In the seven-series comic book, Ravana is the protagonist instead of being the antagonist as the Valmiki Ramayana has him. The series focuses on Ravana as the competent ruler of his kingdom.

True, according to Valmiki Ramayana that Ravana was from the demon clan and was also the one who abducted queen Sita, Rama’s wife, leading to a battle of bloodshed, but the demon king Ravana was also the learned one. The qualities are what the seven thin books of Ravanayan depict. With finishing reading these two books, you would have realised our very own Indian characters are just as appealing and brave as the western superheroes like Superman and Spiderman.