Immortal India: The Resilience of the Civilization

One of the main highlights of the morning session of Day 1 was at Thulika, Immortal India: Young Country, Timeless Civilization wherein Sahita Academy Award winning translator and writer, Prasanna K. Varma interacted with renowned writer and India's literary popstar, Amish Tripathi. He shared his views on Philosophy and Non-Fiction. When asked about his move from Fiction to Non-Fiction, he replied most of hs fictional works have an underlying philosophy and how he utilises fiction as wrapper to encapsulate this. In Shiva trilogy it was Man's search for Evil whereas in Ram Series it is about an ideal society.



Amish talked about Lord Shiva as a god of rebellion, and the most appropriate one to follow in the times of contradiction and chaos. Further he spoke about Suryavanshis -- masculinity and Chandravanshis -- femininity, characteristic of our society, and how it reflects on the implementation of laws in the society. He further talked about his views on Sabarimala issue, and considered it not as a gender issue but as a philosophical one related to sanyasa -- renunciation of materialistic pursuits. He looks at it through a philosophical perspective rather than practical.



He was quoted as saying that rather than turning to western ideals to embrace the empowerment of women we should rather look at our own rich and varied Indian history wherein we worship goddesses and also had numerous heroic women figures like  Rudramadevi. Amish also brought to notice the resillient nature of Indian civilization which has resulted in its survival when compared to others. He attributed the survival of our culture to 'keeping the soul of the old' and still adapting to changes. This flexibility of Indian ideologies is present in his writings. Amish also expressed his desire to write a book on Lord Shiva and Mohini, in which he plans to touch upon the legend of Lord Ayyappa.