T he Immortals of Meluha , the first book in Amish Tripathi’s Shiva trilogy, is now available in its Kannada version — Meluhada Mrutunjaya . Translated by Umesh S. from Dhatri Publications, Meluhada Mrutyunjaya was formally launched at an event, held at H.N. Multimedia Hall, National College, Basavanagudi, last week. The launch was attended by Amish, Umesh, Vishweshwar Bhat and film director Yogaraj Bhat.
Vishweshwar Bhat praised Amish for writing “a wonderful book” and commented that Umesh has translated the book competently. Yogaraj Bhat’s speech was peppered with humour and insights on literature, adding that literature must reach out to the common man. Umesh expressed his gratitude to Amish the opportunity . He spoke of how translating the book was a seamless process because of the support he received from his team.
Amish spoke of why translations of his books are important. “My books have been translated into Hindi, Bengali, Assamese, Telugu, among others, and now Kannada. My grandfather used to say, ‘English is the language of the head, it is important for one to earn their living. But all of us have a language of the heart. I am from the North, so the language of my heart is Hindi, just as Kannada is the language of your heart. I wanted my books to be in the language of the heart and not just of the head.”
Amish revealed he never wanted to be a writer. “I was always a science-oriented person. The idea for the book occurred to me very strongly. I wrote on mythology because I know it quite well. I am a devout Shiva worshipper. There was a time in my life when I was an atheist, but now I am believer in Shiva.”
He added that he doesn’t find the Colonial period interesting, but finds the earlier periods of Indian history more interesting. “There is a lot of beauty in our heritage. We should celebrate it without any extremism.”
