Ajaya - Duryodhana's Mahabharat - What if Duryodhana was not evil?

AJAYA : Epic of the Kaurava Clan by Anand Neelakantan brings one question in our mind "What if Suyodhana or Duryodhana was not an evil person?" 

From childhood we heard heroic stories of Pandavas & Krishna, along with evil stories of Kaurava specially Duryodhana, Dusashana along with Shakuni. Mahabharata from Duryodhana point of view was never brought to us.

Anand has depicted how story could be if Suyodhana was not an evil person. Like many other alternate-mythological-historical novel this one also written considering all characters were mere humans. Anand used all loopholes in conventional Mahabharata epic presented as divine intervention either by Krishna or God, and presented them as how it would be if there were no divine force other than tempering actual fact. Starting from birth of Pandavas, to burning down of Khanva-forest, to Jarasandh-killing etc.  

The story is written keeping Suyodhana as protagonist. So it was obvious that Krishna and Pandava will end up as antagonist. Well few people will always end up on evil side, yes I am talking about Ghandhara king Shakuni. Author has wonderfully colored Suyodhana's character; and circumstances that made him look evil. Characters like Karna, Ashwathama, Eklavya, Jara, Jarasandh, Balarama, Bhishma, Vidura and many more were given proper direction to keep story page turner.

I hope next part that I am going to start is as thrilling as this one. If I talk about rating

1. Cover - 3.5 / 5 
2. Concept - 4.5 / 5
3. Content - 4 / 5
4. Language - 3.5 / 5
5. Story Line - 4.5 / 5
6. Characters - 4 / 5
7. Overall - 4.25 / 5

Book can be found at - Amazon & Flipkart

Review from other readers can be found at - GoodReads