A Review On Dr Sayantan Gupta's The Karna Pages

A story of “anti-hero” as called by the author, Sayantan Gupta in Preface of the book, The Karna Pages, charts the trajectory of one of the most ambiguous and enigmatic heroes in The Mahabharata.

A refreshing take on Karma, the consummate outsider

Sayantan Gupta’s thrill-a-minute new novel follows Karna, the Mahabharata’s most conflicted character, and an Indologist in hot pursuit of an ancient manuscript’s words, writes Shubhrastha.

. gynecologist by profession, Sayantan Gupta has written 11 books; eight in English and three in Bangla. The Karna Pages is Gupta's latest, a mythological thriller. Karna, of course, is the unsung hero in the Mahabharata. Here, his story is a subtext to that of an Indologist who learns of a rare ancient manuscript and starts working on translating the same. The book traces this journey of translation and therein retells Karna's story. The choice of genre is not new to Gupta. In his previous novel, The Flames Burnt Dark, too, he chose a mythological theme. Moreover, such classics like Ramdhari Singh'sRashmirathi have, in the past, retold Karna's side of the story. However, what The Karna Pages does well is use the mythological aspects of his plot in the manner of a well-oiled thriller. The character of Karna, which is primarily what the book is about, is very well fleshed out. The preface to the book gives a much-needed introduction to The Karna Pages. It offers a structured analysis of why the book needed to be written and how the book "got itself written". Karna is represented as a counter, not just to Arjuna (as done in many other novels), but to the entire Pandava clan. This is very much an outsider smack in the middle of two royal clans competing in terms of virtues, valour and riches. And all the while, Karna is depicted as a very human and humane character. Just as the Ramayana and the Mahabharata invoke gods and goddesses in an endeavor to exercise humility, the novel ends with one such invocation. The Krishna-Yudhishthira and Krishna-Karna samvaad play out like a sequence from the age-old tradition of shastraartha (debate based on the scriptures). The Karna Pages has the quality of binding the readers, much like a tightly-knit stage performance. The thriller plotline is a hunt involving Max (the aforementioned Indologist) and a mafia that operates to smuggle and sell manuscripts. The parts involving Max and Madhuri (our hero’s love interest) read a little bit too much like a movie screenplay, but manage to hold one’s interest nevertheless.  The Karna Pages has the quality of binding the readers, much like a tightly-knit stage performance. The thriller plotline is a hunt involving Max (the aforementioned Indologist) and a mafia that operates to smuggle and sell manuscripts. The parts involving Max and Madhuri (our hero's love interest) read a little bit too much like a movie screenplay, but manage to hold one's interest nevertheless. All this while, the parallel plot never loses track. Karna's battle, a life-long one for him, shapes up like a massive operatic finale and the reader is gradually drawn into his struggle. One begins to feel Karna's pain, his successes, his decisions and his failures as one's own. Karna's decisions to not participate in the ill deeds of the Kauravas like dragging Draupadi and undressing her in the middle of the Kaurava sabha, his immense self-control in letting Draupadi, the love of his life go even after being called on a meeting with her, define and expand on Karna's virtue in the book; almost tethering the eponymous character to a state of idealism. But the very next moment, the book makes him prone to human weaknesses, so that one maintains the ambiguity that Karna typically provokes. Karna's burning desire, then, to avenge the accident of his destiny, his desire to prove his worth as an archer, his ambition to fight against Arjuna and meet the much hailed "greatest archer of the world" eye-to-eye; all of these are profoundly human impulses. The book details Karna's interactions with Kunti, his relationship with his wife, the reasons for his discomfort with the Pandava brothers and his nascent, "half-requited" romance with intense and well fleshed-out episodes. The intensity of the Karna-Draupadi meeting, the futility of Bhishma's life, the dialogue between Arjuna and Karna and the poignant war scene where Karna succumbs to death, are brilliant snapshots that work well as standalone bits. It is in these moments that The Karna Pages gains a cinematic quality, something that makes this novel a delightful read. The Karna Pages is a book recommended for anyone who wants to unravel a hidden layer embedded in the Mahabharata. By choosing a character and his story from the beej kavya(source poem), it is able to patiently go back and forth among the various versions of the epic available, to tell a story. This telling is, in more than one way, similar to the Greek tragic tradition. With a beginning, middle and an end, the bildungsroman in Karna's story is parallel to Max's vocation and his mission to translate the manuscript. This balance is what makes The Karna Pages a unique exercise. Please visit  www.drsayantangupta.com to get more updates on his books and upcoming events.