Pradyumna: Son of Krishna by Usha Narayanan

 "Pradyumna: Son of Krishna" by Usha Narayanan  - Burden of father’s reputation!

This book is published by Penguin Metro Reads in Oct 2015 and has 300 pages. 

Pradyumna was born to Rukmini and Krishna. At the time of his and Samba’s (Krishna’s other son) birth, Narad professized that one of them will be destroyer of the Yadu kul and other could save humankind. Pradyumna was abducted by the demon Kaalasura and given to his Queen Mayawati, who raised him as her own. In reality Pradyumna is avatar of Kamadev and Mayawati is avatar of his wife Rati. Krishna’s vein son, Samba, from his other wife Jambavati, assumed that he will succeed Krishna and inherit Dwaraka, until Pradyumna’s return.

Why was Pradyumna abducted? How does he come back to Dwaraka? Will he and Samba be good friends? How will the two brothers cope the burden of expectation of being Krishna’s sons?

Pradyumna is extremely good looking and very brave. He is wise. He respects elders and is polite. In short, he has all the qualities to be called Krishna’s son. Mayawati raises him as mother but she is his wife from previous birth and wants to continue in same role. What a scandal that would have been? She gives her everything to get her husband back from oblivion.

Samba is also handsome and has striking similarity to Krishna in his looks. But the similarity ends there. He is vein, rash, reckless and not as good as Pradyumna in bravery. He sees Pradyumna as an upstart and usurper of his birth right.

This book follows two stories:

The death of Kamadev and separation from Rati. Reincarnation. Coming together and Pradyumna’s life goal.

Two sons of same father. But they handle the pressures differently and their personalities are shaped differently. One becomes reason of extinction of the Yaduvash and other tries to avoid that.

The story, although good, doesn’t have a good flow. It appears like various stories are clubbed together to make a novel. Sometimes, the timeline of events vis-a-vis the events of Mahabharat are not clear. Context of events w.r.t. Mahabharat is not clearly provided. So whether certain events happened before Vanvas or after, before swayamwar or after etc is not clear.

The book reads like a report rather than an interesting story.

I am a strong proponent of author’s honesty. Author shouldn’t lie. If he or she is writing a series, it should be clearly written on the book cover, so that the reader has a choice to read the series or not. This book doesn’t say anything about series but the book ends with Gandhari’s curse to Yadu clan. The objective of Pradyumna’s life is left for the sequel. Knowing that the story will continue on the last page of the book is unfair to the readers.

Why did I read this book? Curiosity about Pradyumna.

What did I like? Umm…. 

What I didn't like? The story doesn’t have good flow. 

Give it a miss.