The Immortals of Meluha

‘Kept me spellbound’ – Prahlad Kakkar

The story of the man, whom legend turned into a God.

1900 BC. In what modern Indians mistakenly call the Indus Valley Civilisation.
The inhabitants of that period called it the land of Meluha – a near perfect empire created many centuries earlier by Lord Ram, one of the greatest monarchs that ever lived.

This once proud empire and its Suryavanshi rulers face severe perils as its primary river, the revered Saraswati, is slowly drying to extinction. They also face devastating terrorist attacks from the east, the land of the Chandravanshis. To make matters worse, the Chandravanshis appear to have allied with the Nagas, an ostracized and sinister race of deformed humans with astonishing martial skills.

The only hope for the Suryavanshis is an ancient legend: ‘When evil reaches epic proportions, when all seems lost, when it appears that your enemies have triumphed, a hero will emerge.

Is the rough-hewn Tibetan immigrant Shiva, really that hero.
And does he want to the that hero at all?

Drawn suddenly to his destiny, by duty as well as by love, will Shiva lead the Suryavanshi vengeance and destroy evil?

This is the first book in a trilogy on Shiva, the simple man whose karma re-cast him as our Mahadev, the God of Gods.

‘A grand adventure’ – Sandipan Deb

Anil Dharker, noted media personality, journalist and author:
‘The Immortals of Meluha’ is a fast paced story, a definite page-turner... Amish has incorporated a range of emods and themes into the book which absorb and grasp the reader’s interest — from sweeping action sequences to heart-tugging love stories.

Prahlad Kakkar, celebrated ad film maker, restaurateur and diving enthusiast:
...An exciting and racy adventure, the story has rich characters whose emotions I could feel and an engaging plot which kept me spellbound. The usage of everyday spoken English helped modernise the god Shiva in my mind and see him as a human being.

Sandipan Deb, editor-in-thief (RPG Publications,), former managing editor (Outlook magazine), author:
...I finished it (‘The Immortals of Meluha’) in one marathon reading session over one and a half days. I think it’s a grand adventure: engrossing and exciting... The deep knowledge of Indian mythology that is the foundation of the book is impressive, and the quirky way the author has played with our myths... is endearing, often startling, and sometimes very funny. I will be waiting for the next two volumes of this trilogy.

Devdutt Pauanaik, India’s leading mythologis4 columnist and author:
The book brings a new way of looking at mythology through the historic lens... Suddenly the cities of the Indus valley come alive and all mythological events morph into plots of an adventure.

G Venkatraman, Executive Vice President – Retail Business, Fullerton India:
Asking “why” is easy. To ask “why not” is difficult. It requires deep understanding of the “why” and then a journey in unraveling possible alternates...

The characters (in The Immortals of Meluha) are rich, but flawed — you can like them, dislike them, scoff at them, feel with them and shake your head in disbelief at the thin line that demarcates men from supermen.

Was Shiva a tribal from the Himalayas? Was the Indus Valley civilization formed by Manu? Was Somras an unstable chemical that an ancient civilization had learned to harness? Is there utopia? Why not?

Shiva! The Mahadev. The God of Gods. Destroyer of Evil. Passionate lover Fierce warrior Consummate dance Charismatic leader. All-powerful, yet, incorruptible. Quick wit, accompanied by an equally quick and fearsome temper.

Over the centuries, no foreigner who’ came to out land — conqueror, merchant, scholar, ruler, traveller — believed that such a great man could possibly exist in reality They assumed that he must have been a mythical God, whose existence could be possible only in 1the realms of human imagination. Unfortunately, we Indians adopted this view as well.

But what if we are wrong? What if Lord Shiva was not a figment of a rich imagination, but a person of flesh and blood? Like you and me. A man who rose to become god-like because his karma. That is the premise of the Shiva Trilogy, which interprets the rich mythological heritage of ancient India, sending fiction with historical fact.

This work is therefore a tribute to Lord Shiva and the lesson tar his life teaches us. A lesson lost in the depths of time and ignorance. A lesson, that all of us can rise to be better people. A lesson, that there exists a potential god in every single human r. All we have to do is listen to ourselves.

The Immortals of Meluha is the first book in the trilogy that chronicles the journey of this extraordinary hero. Two more are to follow: The Secret of the Nagas and The Oath of the Vayuputras.