Vinay Chakravarthy's
THE BANYAN TREE
📖Kautilya, a teenager, is traveling alone through the dark jungles of ancient India. Suddenly he comes across a Banyan Tree that he is inexplicably drawn to.
Soon, he finds himself as Amit, an ordinary high-schooler in a present-day small town in the US. As Amit deals with the seemingly urgent decisions to be made for college and a career, flashes of memories of being Kautilya in a past life keep pulling him in. Some of the people he meets, he seems to have met before as Kautilya.
As he struggles to understand and return to the life he knew and loved, Amit is confronted with much larger questions - who is he really? Where is he in time? Does his quest have a larger meaning?
In an enthralling journey across centuries, continents and lifetimes, the mystical journey of self-discovery becomes a race to save our future. Will he succeed?
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🙋🏻
18 chapters, 115 pages.
"a tale that begins like a Chandamama story and then goes on to explore themes of life and death, birth and rebirth."
Wow what a story..it was full of surprises. The Banyan tree on the cover reminded me of Vikram & Betal & other stories i had heard as a child about huge, old trees & about "things" living on them. We were warned not to go near the tree especially during noon or late evenings.
As the story began, i felt it was a similar horror, supernatural kindof story but.. but but..i was totally awed by what followed. Spirituality & wisdom, wisdom of life & death, of body & soul.
A soul is a traveller who changes a body like one changes clothes. It's timeless. I have heard stories of rebirth, of people claiming to remember their previous birth. The story says a rare few are capable of remembering or revisiting their previous birth and Rishi munis or sadhus used to achieve this power through deep meditation, something called awakening or enlightenment. Their is also mention of portals which help in these transitions.
The story is also about fight of good v/s evil & left me enchanted & nostalgic.