Amish Tripathi, author of the bestselling Shiva Trilogy, announced that the subject of his next series will be the Hindu God Ram. The announcement was made at the Zee Jaipur Literature Festival on Friday evening. Tripathi revealed that the first book in the series would be called The Scion of Ikshavaku, Ikshavaku being the founder of the Suryanvanshis which is dynasty that Ram belonged to. Tripathi says the series will be spread over four-five books and will be released before October 2015. The series is being published by Westland Ltd. Tripathi also released a trailer for the upcoming series.
Tripathi talked about what prompted him to pick Ram as the subject of his next book. He recounted how at a literature festival in Mumbai, he was questioned by a reader on why he used the term 'Lord' when he talked about Ram. "The question deeply upset me... I agree how he treated Sita was unfair, but that was one aspect of his personality." Referring to the negative impression of Ram with regard to how he treated his wife in the Ramayana, Tripathi said, "Ram was called 'Maryada Purush'. People erroneously translate this as 'the perfect man' when it actually means 'the perfect follower of rules'
Tripathi went on to say that it was true of a lot of people who were "brilliant for society, but not for their personal lives." Taking the examples of Gautama Buddha and Mahatma Gandhi, he said, "If we can look at Gautama Buddha and Mahatma Gandhi in their entirety, why not Lord Ram?"
Asked by a fan in the audience about when he would write about the Mahabharatha, he assured the audience that he would write about the epic at some point. "All my books are on a continuum of the creation of Vedic people 12,000 years ago and their destruction around 3500 years ago."
A banker turned author, Tripathi quit his 14-year-old career in financial services to write. His first book, The Immortals of Meluha was a surprise bestseller and The Shiva trilogy subsequently went on to become the fastest selling book series in Indian publishing. The series sold over 2 million print copies. The trilogy has also been contracted by Karan Johar's Dharma Productions to be made into films.
Tripathi's journey in the publishing industry is made all the more interesting by the way he chose to market his first book by distributing the first chapter of The Immortals of Meluha for free at major bookstores. He also marketed the trilogy through cinematic trailers for each of them which were shown in theatres.
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