Deepak Chopra's comic fiction: 'Buddha' A story of enlightenment
As we tread along our journey of understanding contemporary literature, we come across new threads that only strengthen our idea of 'evolution' of literature. Deepak chopra's spiritual piece on Buddha reflects a similar rhythm of an idea but with an added streak of ancient history re-defined.
An ancient history brought alive in a language that is simple, colloquial, and dramatic and that which very much fits in to the present time. History transforms in to a colorful story with the prologue describing about the premonitions by Queen Maya (Gautama's mother), pre-birth, birth and the playful childhood of Siddhartha. The author has skillfully differentiated the character of Sudhodhana both as an ambitious king and a miserable father. The story takes a dramatic turn when Siddhartha's cunning and jealous cousin Devdatta comes to stay with the king. It could be an ordinary reader's delight to understand a spiritually charged character relating to their day to day life for Siddhartha is comprehended as a royal prince with humanly and most natural desires such as admiring the beauty of nature, filling the lonely void by making friends and unlocking various kinds of quests that probably each one of us deeply hide in our minds. He desires freedom.
Freedom of expression, freedom to walk barefoot like an ordinary citizen, freedom to treat the slaves as equal and finally freedom from 'monarchy' as a prince to fulfill to discover his quest that is 'life'. The spiritual journey and transformation from a prince, monk to the enlightened Buddha as how the world recognizes him is brought out in an artistically delicate manner in this comic book by the author. The evil work of 'Mara' is shown intricately woven along with the story of Gautama which also symbolizes the balanced forces of good and evil in our lives. The epilogue does bring the evil to an end which takes place after Buddha seeks enlightenment. Deepak Chopra also provides the later years which Buddha spent establishing his philosophies of 'Nirvana' across the country with the help of this disciples. Politics does make itself present everywhere along the story line and its subtle effect for children as readers is very much tolerable. Although the author is widely known for his spiritual works, the contemporary style in which he's re-worked on books such as 'Kama-Sutra' opens a new path towards mythological, historical and spiritual reading.
The author has collaborated with Joshua Dysart to enhance the creativity of his subject.
As we tread along our journey of understanding contemporary literature, we come across new threads that only strengthen our idea of 'evolution' of literature. Deepak chopra's spiritual piece on Buddha reflects a similar rhythm of an idea but with an added streak of ancient history re-defined.
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