Review: my Hanuman Chalisa

my Hanuman Chalisa by Devdutt Pattanaik
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Hanuman Chalisa, as written by Saint Tulsidas, is a text which is near and dear to my soul for a long time. It is one of the earliest texts I read, back when I was 10-11 years old, and I got this as a present for participating in Gita Recitation. That very same book, wonderfully illustrated and printed, is still in my possession, some two decades or something past. Not as new, and with a lot of pages taped in, but it does the job.

Even back in the day, the valorous tales of Hanuman, Sri Rama’s loyal companion were enough to enthrall the sensibilities of an overeager child. Perhaps tied to this were also the brilliantly rendered Ramayana series by Mr. Ramanand Sagar which aired regularly on channels such as doordarshan.

The reason they stuck with the child in me, were the simple yet personable language and tone in which it was written. They were like stories being recited in temples and social gatherings. Even if the language written was Awadhi, it was similar enough to Hindi, a language I was familiar with, for them to make sense.

Being from a culture adhered in Sanatana Dharma, there was never a dearth of deities or philosophies for one to choose from. In the modern age, they didn’t run diametrically opposed to one another. You could belong to a household following a particular doctrine and have an inclination towards another. Coming from a culture which boasts of hosting 330 million gods, that means there are a lot of choices to pick from

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