Intricate, delicately carved, enthralling, utterly unputdownable, scintillating, gripping….

Love, hatred, jealousy, fear, pride, dedication, friendship, love, revenge and what not…

Many more adjectives and nouns put together won’t suffice me describing about how much this series of books by Shatrujeet Nath have mesmerized me and literally affected me a lot….

Yes, I am talking about the bestseller series called – Vikramaditya Veergatha by Shatrujeet Nath. A series of four books, or must I say – three wonderfully created books to begin with (the fourth is yet to come).

To start with, as the name suggests – it is wonderful tale about Samrat Vikramaditya who ruled over historical India – then known as Sindhuvarta. He, along with his trusted council of nine; who in themselves are generously gifted individuals are tasked with safeguarding an ancient and dreadful weapon with dire consequences if it fell into the wrong hands. And as fate would have it, the King and his council are faced with an extremely enormous challenge – the Devas and Asuras determined to in their ruthless pursuit to wrench out the weapon from the safe custody of the king, and the danger of a newly brewing conspiracy among the forces in the frontiers of Sindhuvarta which have the power to entirely ruin its future. The Fate of the kingdoms of Avanti and its allies spread out across Sindhuvarta lies in the hands of the Samrat….

The entire books is awesome in all respects – it has a neatly studied geography of ancient India – in fact it takes you traversing right from the present day North East to far west beyond the Arbuda Ranges, from the ancient kingdoms of Magadha in the north to the Dandaka forests in the south…. It takes you on a journey of savouring the Indian history and mythological genius as the characters and their special skills come forward…..

As a child, I was fortunate to get my hands on the Vikram Betaal stories that father used to tell. I had even read about Kalidasa reciting cryptic Sanskrit poetry in the courts of Raja Bhoj in present day Madhya Pradesh…. And then when I picked up these books from Amazon one fine morning… The beauty of the tale gripped me….made me relate to characters I knew about. I was entirely fascinated….

It is difficult to present differently, characters that people have in their minds – and the author has definitely done a wonderful job of it. The characters feel to be sitting and acting around us – their joys and sorrows brew into the readers’ hearts and the story leaves you sitting back and ruminating about the different intertwined events that present themselves to you in this series of books.

Please do grab all the three books and read them. You would not be disappointed for sure. May it be The Guardians of the Halahala, The Conspiracy at Meru and The Vengeance of Indra in that order.

A fact worth mentioning is what the author says in the author’s note – and it has long since become my favourite sentence – the fourth book would be called ‘The Wrath of the Hellfires.’

I would not kindle your interests more though… Telling anything more would only make you want more of the books… The child in me still would ask the author one single question– The release date of the fourth book please….. and an urge to bring it out fast… the readers simply cannot wait any longer. Even as I completed the third book yesterday night, it made me cry thinking that there would be sometime, before I would lay my hands on the fourth… Hoping for it to come soon…

PS –

Aha! And to know exactly what hellfires are? Well, you know what to do…..