Book Review: Ahalya’s Awakening by Kavita Kane

I was always fascinated by the two liner infidelity story of Ahalya, Indra and Gautam which is mentioned in Ramayana, mostly only to display Ram’s ability to forgive and provide nirvana to struggling souls. Ram touches Ahalya who was turned into stone because of her husband’s curse. But there wasn’t enough mention anywhere to understand the relation between the three main characters of the story and the detailed reasons behind Gautam’s curse.

Kavita Kane has done justice to the story by explaining the reasons of their choices and relationship between the three. Her storyline is definite powerful although I wasn’t impressed by her storytelling skills. I found it a bit clumsy. What I liked about the author was her realistic way of presenting each character. They had their strengths, weaknesses and made choices based on their need & desires.

The first thing I loved about the book was the concept of Indra. I had no idea that Indra is a position (king of heaven) and not a name. So if you are bad Indra and you couldn’t do justice with your role, you can be voted out. I also liked how the complex emotions like infatuation, love, jealousy, longing, infidelity and helplessness are explained in this complex story. The relationship between Indra and his wife is also captured beautifully. Overall, it’s a good read to understand the complexities of marriage and infidelity and very much relevant to today’s world as well.

– – – –

My favourite quotes from the book-

“Well, there are all kinds of love but never the same love twice”.

“I’ll remember this confession of love and I’ll forgive you if you ever hurt me.”

– – – – – -

I would also like to mention this beautiful review that I read on GoodReads : “Sachi married the man who didn’t love her, and she was miserable. Ahalya married the man who loved her, and she too was miserable.

In the end it came down to the search of oneself, and only this brought peace, and completion to her life.”