Sunday, 2 August 2020

Divyastra-Nimish Tanna

Book: Divyastra
Author: Nimish Tanna
Publisher: Become Shakespeare

What would you do if you could control the world’s mightiest weapons?

Divyastra by Nimish Tanna explores the eons old stories of obtaining the weapons of the Gods just by invoking them. The only catch, it could only be transferred verbally, with no written records. In today’s world, however, one person who calls himself Guruji knows how to do it and uses the spells to help an innocent boy from Mumbai across various stages in his life. On a parallel track, Shankar is told a tale that puts him on a track of unmasking guruji and discovering a family secret. Amidst this story of ancient myths, wordplays and dispersed emotions, will Shankar ever be able to separate fact from fiction and find his true identity?

The book takes up a completely different track as it just takes the bare minimum from mythology and weaves a story around them. The storytelling is quite engaging and interesting, one that would keep a reader turning the pages as it moves along. the manner in which a tale within a tale is told is quite impressive. The way the concept of divine weapons has been treated is excellent and worthy of praise. I loved the manner in which the Nimish has hidden clues in plain sight in the story which feel so transparent in hindsight. While I liked the sub-plots, the second sub-plot of the Vaishnavastra didn’t seem that relevant and could have been crafted a little better, specially the treatment of the characters there as they have been reduced to just objects of desire. The climax of the book was amazing and hair raising.

This story is extremely character driven and talking at length about them would definitely leak out spoilers, but the characters are extremely well crafted. From the names to the character arcs, the details are quite fine and are extremely relevant to the story. I loved the wordplay in the character names and the manner they are revealed.

Overall a good book that scores a 4.13/5 for me.

Get a copy of the book here.

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