Soul Warrior

Book Title: Soul Warrior

Author: Falguni Kothari

Genres: Fiction

Rating: 4

Twisted myths. Discretion advised.
Fight fate, or succumb to destiny?
In the dark Age of Kali, the Soul Warrior alone stands guard over the Human Realm, protecting its denizens from evil-willed asuras or demons. When a trick of fate appoints him guru to a motley crew of godlings, he agrees to train them as demon hunters against his better judgment. Suddenly, Lord Karna is not only battling the usual asuras with sinister agendas, but also rebellious students and a fault-ridden past.
Spanning the cosmic realms of mythic India, here is a tale of a band of supernatural warriors who come together over a singular purpose: the salvation of Karna’s secret child

Review 

Mythology in modern setting. It might look like everyone is writing a Mythological novel these days still can you ever have enough of it? Not if you are a Mythological fan! I started reading Soul warrior and realized in the first few pages, that irrespective of the times I have watched/read Karna's dying moments in Kurukshetra War, I can still feel the emotional overflow thanks to the Author. So, the story begins where Mahabharatha almost ends and a lot later in time.

A lot later that you find Karna in modern day Bombay, jean-clad, technologically-equipped and errr, foul-mouthed. I paused reading after the Trimurtis were dubbed as Three stooges and Saraswathi became the 'Babe'. Once my brain activated my shock absorbers, I continued reading but then, it forgot to switch on my 'twists-tracker'. So I was more or less 'wide-eyed' and 'jaw-dropped' till I completed the book.

Six godlings are sent as trainees to Karna, who had become the Soul warrior, the one who goes Asura hunting in the human realm. The six godlings are offsprings of the Pandavas and one being that of the Soul warrior himself. For the sake of avoiding spoilers, watch out for surprises about who the six offsprings are, who Lavya is, who Ash is, who Dev-I1 is, and oh, I can go on. I can't help wondering if it could have been even more gripping if Draupadi-Qalanderi alias was kept a surprise too.

The only issues I had with the book is really a very personal thing - the number of pages and the language. 400+ pages made me a little restless. Though the language is really good, it isn't simple. Sometimes I had to reread a couple of paragraphs to bring my wavering mind to a halt.

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