Leap In The Dark

The more observant among you must have noticed by now the words Epic India in my address. I'm sure a few of you are aware of the significance of those two words, but for those who aren't perhaps this page will offer some explanation.

The Epic India portal is hosted by the author Ashok K. Banker who has made it his life's work to reclaim the epic stories of India for Indians. The stories of a culture are their lifeblood and their true history. By being the first contemporary Indian to offer retellings of The Ramayana and other stories, Mr. Banker is setting out to reclaim Indian history for Indians. No longer will they have to rely on British versions of their story; versions that refer to their first attempts at independence, even to this day, as the Indian Mutiny.

All over the world people's stories have been taken from them and given into the hands of those who "colonized" their country. We can read about the brave settlers and missionaries fighting off the "natives", but what about the story of the people who were displaced? From Australia to South America, India to North America and even parts of Europe there are people whose history has been stolen and is now told from the point of view of those who took it from them.

It will take people with the dedication and strength of Mr. Banker in countries all over the world for this to be reversed. It is important work and in thanks for giving me this space to speak my mind, and in honour of the work that Mr. Banker is doing, I humbly offer this page of cover art from various editions of Ashok K. Bankers modern Ramayana

The Indian Editions

Prince Of Ayodhya

Siege Of Mithla

Demons Of Chitrakut

Armies Of Hanuman

Bridge Of Rama

King Of Ayodhya

Well there you have them, the covers for the Indian editions of Ashok K. Banker's modern retelling of The Ramayana. For any of my Indian readers, I'll be putting up the British version's of the covers in the next little while. They are pretty much what the rest of the English-speaking world is now getting. There was an earlier version of Prince Of Ayodhya put out in the States, but since it was butt ugly (I own it because it ended up in Canada as well) I'm not going to bother with it. If I'm able to find good-sized images of other languages covers I'll be putting them up as well.

But where ever you are looking in from right now the most important thing is that you read these books. What I found most refreshing was that no accommodation was made for readers who are not Indian. There has been no compromising of style, story, or philosophy on the part of the author (which may explain the lack of an American publisher anymore. Just to give you some idea of how ridiculous things can get for authors, J.K. Rowling has been forced to release "American" versions of all her Harry Potter novels replacing British idioms with Americanisms.) These books are a complete immersion into Indian culture, and its up to the reader to sink or swim on their own. The British versions come with a glossary of some basic terms and concepts but aside from that...

The key is to have an open mind and go with the story. It's amazing how quickly everything becomes clear and makes sense.

If you want to know my opinion, you can read my reviews of the first three books, my review of Armies Of Hanuman, Parts One and Two of my interview with Ashok Banker, and my review of Bridge Of Rama all on the pages of Blogcritics.org. (Do a search while you are there for Ashok Banker, and you should find some of the articles he posted during his too brief sojourn as a contributor to the site. The sister site Desicritics, still keeps asking whether Ashok would like to contribute the occasional post)

Anyway that's it for now, hope you enjoyed the pictures and drop back again as I hope to add more.

Well here we are more as promissed; the British covers. Technically speaking these are the British covers for the Ramayana but they are also the covers being used everywhere in the English speaking world save for India. It is the British publication that is being distributed, as far as I know, through out the English-speaking world from Canada to New Zealand and where ever else Penguin sells books.

It used to be that you could count on that being every country that had been or still was a member of the British Commonwealth (read former colonies and empire subjects: is it just me or does that strike anyone else as weird that countries would want to be part of a club that commemorated when they were under someone else's rule?) But I wonder how many African nations are being offered the opportunity to buy it. I know from comments left at my site that people in South Africa are unable to purchase it there even though there is a sizeable Asian community in that country.

Anyway enough politics, this is about Ashok and Rama, two good souls who don't deserved to be besmirched by the stain of that crassness except by their own choice. Although I'm sure the majority of our politicians alive today could learn a thing or two from Rama, or it they even picked up a copy of the Ramayana and learned a little about dharma. All right I'll shut up already. Enjoy the pictures, but be warned the Germans are coming and I don't know what they think these books are about – but the covers are mighty strange

The British Covers

Prince Of Ayodhya

Siege Of Mithila

Demons Of Chitrakut

Armies Of Hanuman

Bridge Of Rama

King Of Ayodhya

Many of us have found out from Ashok Banker an author usually has no control over what's going to be on the cover of his books. Even in his own country with his own publisher, the publisher's marketing department is going to decide what they think is appropriate. Of course they're not just going to be thinking of something that will accurately reflect the story, but something that will appeal to a broad spectrum of the population.

A culturally significant story like The Ramanyana has a better chance of being well treated in its home country in terms of its cover then the average novel. With so many people knowing and loving the story you can expect care to be taken in the selection of covers for at least the domestic versions.

Unfortunately if you think the author has no say in the cover at home has the potential for disaster written all over it, foreign language versions can sometimes be so off the mark as to be ridiculous and horrific at the same time.

Fortunately for Ashok the majority of his covers have been rendered in a tasteful matter. In my mind there is only one hideous exception, but I'll leave you to make your own judgements, although I did drop a hint earlier.

I would like to thank Yutaka who is personally responsible for ensuring that The Ramayana is being released in Japan because of his willingness to translate them. It was from him that I was able to obtain good quality reproductions of the two books published in Japan. Some of you may have seen some of these images before, but for those who haven't enjoy.