What Tripathi has done with The Oath of The Vayuputras is to retell the Shiva mythos as an ecological allegory, with somras standing in for nuclear power, fossil fuels, or perhaps industrialization in general. We see this with fairy tales, Tarzan, superheroes-and also with mythology. Every retelling then uses the original archetype to explore something new. Sometimes an original creation is remarkable not so much because it has beautiful language as because it creates larger-than-life characters and situations that future creators adapt and retell, whether in prose, poetry, film, or any other medium.

But the laziness in editing and rewriting is evident, and unforgivable.Īnd this is a shame, because there is a lot going on in this book that could have made it wonderful, particularly the things Tripathi is willing to explore. The scope of imagination is so vast and ambitious, and the sense of joy in storytelling so evident, that I really wanted to like this book. It seems as though Westland Ltd, knowing that it has a guaranteed best-seller on its hands, has decided to be as lazy as possible when it comes to the actual editing. The poor grammar and plot holes are a failure of editing more than writing. There are also anachronisms-the word “commando', for instance, was a specific creation of the 19th century Boer War, and feels out of place in a 4,000-year-old setting, especially when other words would fit the purpose. The book keeps using “may' instead of “might', and “would' instead of “will'. View Full Image The Oath Of The Vayuputras: Westland, 578 pages, Rs350.įinally, there was a problem that had affected the earlier books as well: clunky language and sloppy grammar.

The vayuputras