AMISH’S WORK HAS REVIVED INTEREST AMONG SOME IN INDIA’S OLDEST DECIPHERED SCRIPT
I was at an airport once and was rushing to the loo. One guy came running and asked, ‘Are you Amish?’ I said yes. He said, ‘I need a selfie with you.’ I said, ‘I need to go to the loo.’ He said, ‘My flight is about to take off.’ I said, ‘Dude, please!’ He said, ‘Listen, please!’ So, we took a selfie. And he ran and I ran. Both in different directions.” Humour is not an attribute that Amish, one of India’s superstar mythologists, is known for. Yet, it is as much a part of his multifaceted personality as love is of Raavan’s layered characterisation in his latest release, Raavan: Enemy of Aryavarta.
Over the years, Amish has evolved into what millions of youngsters aspire to be today— an influencer. Surprisingly, he doesn’t take this tag as seriously as social media does. “If you start becoming conscious of what you do and say, or don’t do and say, then you’re not real anymore,” he says. Amish intentionally stays away from the spotlight, resurfacing every time there’s a book launch.
Aware that the careers of some people in the publishing apparatus depend on his books’ sales, he explains, “For an author to say ‘Someone can lose his job, I don’t care, because
I have to be in my cocoon’, it’s adharma!” But does he need the gimmick of star-studded launch events when his debut book— The Immortals of Meluha, the first in the Shiva trilogy—became a bestseller despite being self-published? “The moment you start taking your work lightly is when failure starts,” he says.
Right from the beginning, Amish has openly spoken about his move from atheism to belief when writing The Immortals of Meluha, and he continues to refer to his books as Shiva’s blessings. In today’s opinion-heavy world, it is hard not to wonder if such conscious self-portrayal shields him from controversies. Amish only says, “Speak the truth, but speak it politely. You don’t generate controversy.” But, were he to continue practising atheism or follow another faith, would his books have still done well? “I don’t know, but I think India has an answer for the rest of the world on coexistence; not just tolerance, it is active respect,” he says.
The primary aim of Amish’s books is to present philosophies. In the Shiva trilogy, he quenches the thirst for understanding anti-ageing and immortality by giving readers a dose of the divine elixir, somras. Not many know that Amish’s father, Dr. V. K. Tripathi, is a nanotechnology scientist who has invented a ‘wonder’ molecule—along with a mechanism to deliver it—that can slow down ageing and cure related ailments. “The scientific explanations of the somras came from stuff I learnt from my brother Ashish and my dad,” he reveals, reiterating his viewpoint from the trilogy, “A phone is a damn good device, but if you use it for 15 hours a day, it is bad. That doesn’t mean the innovation is bad, but excess of anything should be avoided.”
Although he weaves in interesting concepts, some readers believe that reimagining epics in the course of reinterpreting their philosophies takes one away from traditional narratives. He reasons that when repeated invasions of India drained the people’s self-confidence, “we stopped reinterpreting our stories and became attached to the versions handed down to us. In my view, we got our actual independence in 1991 with the economic reforms. It’s no surprise that this is when reinterpretations of our stories were revived. In every era, we preserve the traditional soul of the old, but add something new.”
His ardent fans are proving him right. Here’s how: “I love putting symbols across my books, but I don’t speak of them.” He points at random elements on the cover art of Raavan: “This is ‘Raavan’ written in the Brahmi script. These are the numbers ‘3’ and ‘7’—that’s a clue for the fifth book” of the series. What’s more astonishing than the omnipresent symbology speaking to new-age readers in an ancient tongue is the fact that his young audience is now interested in the country’s “oldest deciphered script”, even if only to decode his clues. “Some of them are learning the Brahmi script and writing in it on my new Facebook page ‘Amish & the Immortals’.” The traditional soul has found a new form.
A secret symbologist, a seeker, a philosopher, an author, an influencer, a smart marketer, an upholder of freedom of expression, a patron of culture, a “proud Indian”, and a “Shiva bhakt”—these are then the 10 faces of Amish. But, when he says he has book ideas ready for the next 25-30 years, it seems as though he too has 10 heads like Raavan. Letting out a Raavan-ous laugh, he joins his hands and says courteously, “I am a simple guy.” An online search reveals that ‘amish’ means ‘honest’ or ‘free of deceit’. The lasting impression, then, is that perhaps he does, indeed, speak the truth politely.
—Nalini Ramachandran