Ashwatthama’s Redemption: The Rise of Dandak Written By- Gunjan Porwal

Name- Ashwatthama’s Redemption: The Rise of Dandak

Written By- Gunjan Porwal

Published By- Om Books International

Pages- 263

Ratings- 4🌟

About the Author-

Gunjan Porwal, engineer by day and writer by night, is fascinated by Indian mythology, especially the Mahabharata and Ramayana.
After graduating from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur in 2002, Gunjan worked in MNCs as an engineer while contemplating writing anything other than code.
Gunjan lives in Pune with his wife, children and parents. Ashwatthama’s Redemption: The Rise of Dandak is his debut novel.

About the book-

Over a hundred years after the Mahabharata War, an ancient power threatens to destroy the new Age of Men, by establishing the Age of Terror of the asuras, long believed to be extinct. the only hurdle in its path is Guru Dronacharya’s son, the mighty but accursed warrior Ashwatthama, who lost all his powers following Lord Krishna’s curse and who unwittingly finds himself drawn into the quest of the lost bow of Lord Rama, the Kodanda. As ghosts of the distant past return to haunt him and the line between friends and enemies blurs, Ashwatthama must fight his inner demons to emerge victorious. He undertakes a perilous journey—across the vast plains of the Ganges, to the snow-capped peaks of the Himavant where the price of failure is a fate worse than death and death is a privilege not granted to Ashwatthama.

Is this all part of Lord Krishna’s great plan? Will Ashwatthama be able to regain his lost glory?

Review-

The war is over, but the impact of the war isn’t.

The Great war of Mahabharata and the stories surrounding it has been a real inspiration to every Indian. Sadly, people are losing their interest in Mythology and the teachings in Mahabharata and Ramayana are also eroding from our lives.

A book like Ashwatthama’s Redemption jolted me back to the days when my grandmother used to recite the stories of the great epics. Mahabharata also known as the longest epic in our world has been my inspiration since childhood. One of those interesting events of Mahabharata was Krishna’s cursing of Ashwatthama till eternity. An eternal life with diseases and bruises. A result of the great sin that Ashwatthama committed by trying to destroy the Pandava lineage.

Gunjan Porwal, picks up the story several years after the great war fictionalizing Ashwatthama’s life after the Kurukshetra war.

He delved into the pages of the great epic to find references and create an enthralling storyline about the life of Dronacharya’s son and the rise of Dandak, one of the most formidable Asura.
Every page is laced with mystery and suspense. The plot is excellent and beautifully crafted to keep the readers hooked and craving for more.

Everybody deserves a closure. So did Ashwatthama. Gunjan Porwal, found a fantastic way to answer the million dollar question every reader of Mahabharata had…Is Ashwatthama still alive? Walking on this earth, doomed till eternity?

I’m hoping to find out more about this in the next book of this series.