NewBook: The Man the Most Attractive

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The Krishna’s story that you have been listening to for the past few weeks is now in a book form – e-book, Paperback as well as audio. Each format has its own advantages.

Those of you who enjoy reading your books on an e-reader, say Kindle reader, may love to read a well formatted book, with nice illustrations and so on, on an e-device. You can probably sit back and enjoy it without interruptions.

Old timers may like to read the book in physical form, I mean printed form. A printed form is also a good choice if you would like to gift it to someone you love. Especially since it is more story oriented, you may want to gift it to a young friend, may be your children or even grandchildren ;-)

I am more of an auditory type. I prefer to listen rather than read books. Even when I read an e-book, I normally prefer to enable ‘read aloud’. It is not just that I can concentrate better on an audio, it also affords me to multi-task while I listen to the book. For example, I can listen while I do my morning walk or when I drive or when I am gardening. If you are like me, you will surely find the audio version more preferred.

The audio version also has the advantage that it preserves all those music bits I have seamlessly interspersed while narrating the story in my blog or podcast. They are not only meant to add more spice to the narrative, but they also introduce you to new world of Indian music in its myriad forms – classical, bhajan, classical dance, dance dramas, folk theatre and so on. That adds another dimension to the audio narration.

Before I proceed further, let me say a few words about the title that you saw in the beginning. I am sure many an eyebrow would have been raised at the title. It probably sounded more like the title of a romance novel ;-) In addition to making it more catchy, I wanted to make it a bit philosophical too. Afterall, philosophy is my pet subject ;-)

To understand the philosophy part, you need to view the title in the Sanskrit language – the most favored Indian language when it comes to Indian philosophy. The prefix ‘The Man’ translates to Purusha – a Sanskrit word that has very high philosophical implications. Though literally, the word Purusha just means male, in Indian philosophy the word actually stands for God. He is called Purusha since he resides inside everything. That is, he is the one who is omni present.

Purusha also means something that livens up things which are otherwise inert. In Indian philosophy, all material things are considered to be inert and are viewed as feminine – not because they are inert, but because they give rise to multiple things, or they reproduce. But their ability to reproduce or proliferate only makes sense if at least some of them are alive. And it is God or Purusha who gives them life. It is like the God of Bible breathing life into the man he created out of dust. Or it is like the God of the Upanishads entering the myriad material bodies to bring them alive.

That much for the first part of the title ;-)

The second part of the title translates to Krishna in Sanskrit language – someone who attracts. Obviously, a story about Krishna, that this book is all about, has his name in the title. He is the most attractive since there can be none more attractive than God. I am equating Krishna to God more in a figurative sense, than from a religiously motivated way. Vyasa refers to him as Krishna; you may call him by whatever name you want to see God.

That probably demystifies the strange looking title. For those who expect everything to be told explicitly, I have also added a subtitle – “Wonderful stories of Krishna”. Or in other words, the title of my book is “The Man the Most Attractive: Wonderful stories of Krishna” ;-)

For those of you who may not be regularly listening to my blog or podcast, let me say this. This is a book based on the ancient Indian scripture namely Bhagavata, believed to have been composed by Sage Vyasa, 5000 years ago. Though devout Indians view this scripture as one of the most important religious compositions, I have emphasized more on the story telling aspect of this work, and especially focused more on the stories of God incarnate Krishna. From story telling point of view, it is a book steeped in fantasy, mystery, devotion, with a sprinkling of Indian philosophy.

Since the complete book can be quite voluminous, for easy handling, I have split the book into multiple parts. The one I am releasing now is Part 1 of this series. It is around 100 pages in print and slightly over 2 hours in audio.

This book is available in almost all online stores and some libraries. Check the link https://books2read.com/TheMan1 to preview and purchase the book from your favorite store.

Happy reading/listening. Please don’t forget to leave back your reviews on the site where you purchased this book from. That will be greatly appreciated.