The Mind Of Amish

AMISH’S INFLUENCE GOES BEYOND HIS BOOKS, HIS BOOKS GO BEYOND LITERATURE, HIS LITERATURE IS STEEPED IN PHILOSOPHY, WHICH IS ANCHORED IN BHAKTI, WHICH POWERS HIS LOVE FOR INDIA.

- Gautam Chikermane

IS AMISH a philosopher evangelising his ideas through the medium of the novel? Or, is he a storyteller powering his novels with ancient Indian philosophies? If neither, is he a columnist tracking the Indian landscape and its flood of problems, using the Ramayana as his narrative and Ram and Sita as his voice? To rephrase, is he rewriting an ancient story, using epics to mirror a present or nudging social reforms for a future he visualises by leaning on familiar characters and using their familiarity to push home his messages? Is he violating the spirit of the epics by reinterpreting them or is he simply contemporising them in the language and the sensitivities of the mass readers of 21st century India? Finally, is he the product of sharp marketing that has found a sudden—and enviable—readership that has turned him into what filmmaker Shekhar Kapur calls India’s “first literary popstar”?

If your answer is that Amish is some of all the above, you would be right. But if you said he is all of these or none, you would be right too. His disarming smile hides the intense and complex mind powering the man. His capacity to read is huge, his reading of those readings deeply internalised, all of which show up easily, almost unconsciously in his stories. The culture, the rituals, the weapons, the strategy…all flow like water—not the calm, warm stream of the Yamuna but of the fast-moving, cold Ganga, his scenarios cutting through your mind, his characters carving paths unseen.