Zara, enclosed in a plasma bubble, lands on the bank of the Ganges from the tongue of the glacier. She begins her life on the riverbank where the eternal question of "Who am I?' drives her on a journey to the city where she reckons that she can find her purpose. But her voyage is not going to be an easy one as she confronts personal loss and materialistic pleasures.
Zara's Witness is a philosophical fantasy where Zara's story is told through the four ashramas of life which guide a human towards fulfilment, happiness, and spiritual liberation. This book is aimed towards anyone who is trying to find their purpose in life.
The extraordinary prose will transport you to Zara's world, leave you spellbound, help you appreciate the finer nuances of life, and compel you to go on a journey of self-discovery and rumination.
SHUBHRANGSHU ROY has been a journalist for three decades during which he worked extensively in senior editorial capacities at The Economic Times, The Asian Age, The Pioneer, Business Standard, and Financial Express. He has also written for The Times of India, Hindustan Times and The Indian Express. In 2008, Roy founded India's youngest business daily, Financial Chronicle. Roy is a gifted writer and is known for the high standards of editorial integrity and his in-depth analysis of economic and political issues. Zara's Witness is his first foray into literature.
Dear Zara,
This book is for you, but it's not your story.
It is more of a coming-of-age manual for you step into your teens today.
Zara's Witness is a philosophical fantasy capturing the journey of a girl-from infancy to adulthood-in search of an answer to that eternal human question: who am I? That search meanders along the course of a river to its final destination in the sky where both the river and the human spirit merge at the end of the journey to discover the one eternal truth revealed to mankind since time immemorial-universal love.
The book has been scripted since you were one year old and is based on conversations with one of India's least publicised masters of a spiritual cult- that has some of India's wealthiest citizens among its select followers-at the foot of the Himalayas. In Zara's Witness, the pupil becomes the infant girl, Zara, journeying to her destination along the course of the Ganges. The Master becomes the river.
The book combines the wisdom of the spiritual master with over 5,000 years of Vedic expositions in a series of hallucinatory journeys that deliver the core of Indian philosophy in a little over 35,000 words of adventure-driven drama in primordial, contemporary, and futuristic settings.
Reader: Zara's Witness is primarily aimed at you, the young-adult reader, to introduce you to Indian spiritual wisdom in an age that is widely believed will usher in the return to Indic knowledge traditions for balanced global development. At yet another level, it is also aimed to arouse the aesthete in you so that you may grow up to be well-versed in the best universal values and appreciate the finer nuances of life.
Technique: According to noted Indologist Wendy Doniger's book, The Hindus: An Alternative History, the conversation is the centrepiece of the book, for which, the narration is merely a frame. The book deploys several tools used in other crafts and science such as literature, poetry, theatre, classical Indian and Western music, cinema, and quantum computing to narrate Zara's inner exploration.
It uses jump cuts, techniques of landscape painting, elements of magic realism, jungle adventure, theatrical and musical extravaganza, and culinary craft to tell the story. It also draws on the technique of alaap* in classical Indian music and the concept of arias and libretto in classical Western opera, in order to reach crescendo in rapid bursts, before culminating in rapture.
Book's Contents and Sample Pages
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