Sons Of Darkness: India’s Dark Grim Fiction Comes Of Age

Sons Of Darkness: India’s Dark Grim Fiction Comes Of Age

Ancient Indian history and the Hindu mythologies are filled with characters that make you question how you see life, how perspectives can change circumstances and why we make the choices that we do. The rich heritage of stories that we have are hardly explored by modern writers in a way that will be compelling for today’s younger audience. We all know that we love the Ramayana and Mahabharata and other mythic stories but we also want them to be logical and reasonable. Amish Tripathi tried that to some extent with the Shiva trilogy but that was a retelling of an existing story. The story itself was not new. 

Odisha’s Gourav Mohanty, a lawyer and now an author is about to change contemporary Indian literature with his first epic grim dark fantasy series called the ‘Sons Of Darkness’. The macroscopic vistas and the microscopic details of a world that is fantastic will take on a journey like no other. 

Talking about the inception of the idea for the story, Gourav said, “There is a big vacuum, considering the amazing sources we have in vedas, puranas and ancient historical events of the Indian subcontinent. I wanted to bring a proper grim dark fantasy to India. I realised that everyone, including me, loves the Mahabharata. So I picked up a few characters from it and started weaving this epic saga called the ‘Sons of Darkness’ which is the first book in the five part series called ‘Raag of Rta’. That’s how this journey started.”

One of the major characters in the book is Bhanumati aka Mati, who is a pirate princess of Kalinga. “In ancient times Kalinga used to be as powerful as the Britishers of the 18th and 19th centuries. We used to have our own fleet of ships and we had settled on various islands of south-east Asia. Mati is one of the morally ambiguous characters from the legendary kingdom of Kalinga through whose eyes we see the story unfold based on a prophecy.”  

Through the Raag of Rta Gourav has tried to build an entirely new world with all the nuances of any society. The details which he has painstakingly put together take you on an epic journey. “Series like The Song Of Ice And Fire and The Lord Of The Rings are huge and there is a valid reason behind such enormous books which is the idea of world building. The Sons Of Darkness delves into such an intricately designed world that is based in the Indian subcontinent.”

As the characters try to wade their way through this dark world they find themselves in places they never imagined to be in. The book tells the story where the Mathuran republic is almost on the blink of oblivion as it has bled to almost being dead due to relentless violent confrontations with the empire of Magadh. Krishna and Satyabhama, the republic’s leaders are trying their best to save it and have put their plans in motion within and beyond its blood-soaked borders. But soon, they discover that neither gold nor alliances last forever and they are not the only players in the game.

Mati, the pirate princess of Kalinga, must mend her ways if she is to be a good wife. But old habits die hard, especially when one habitually uses murder to settle scores. Karna, the gifted son of a lowborn charioteer, hopes to bury his brutal past, but finds that life is not generous in offering second chances. The crippled hero-turned-torturer Shakuni struggles in the maze of daggers, that is politics, leaving little time for him to plot the revenge he craves.

The key players set the tone from the very beginning for an epic 650 page saga that will keep your heart racing and make your mind go numb. Gourav has managed to manifest a world where moral ambiguity is common norm for survival. Alongside sinister queens, naive kings, pious assassins and predatory priests, these dubious heroes converge where the Son of Darkness is prophesied to rise and break the world, even as forgotten Gods prepare to play their hand.

Gourav firmly believes in the Toni Morrision quote “If you find a book you really want to read but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” He wanted to read a dark grim fantasy book with Indian characters and so he started writing this epic. This epic took him on a journey of countless sleepless nights and rewrites. “The deeper I went into this world, the hunger to know more increased,” he shared about his journey. It took one and a half years to complete the book filled with numerous details like geography, language, currency, mottos and more. 

“The five book thing happened as I went deeper into the story and tried developing the characters and their story arcs. I realised what the end is going to be. There are multiple plotlines happening in the story and I don’t know what journey the characters will take but I have a basic idea of how it is all going to end,” he revealed. 

Finding a publisher for a debut author is very difficult and the fantasy genre in India is very new. He shared his journey to getting published and said, “One of the publishers  wanted to divide this book into three parts and I was not going to do another Amish kind of thing. Then the whole idea of creating an immersive story through world building will be gone. It took two years for me to find a publisher who liked the book and wanted to take the risk of investing in my vision.” 

The book has received rave reviews from across the world. Anand Neelakantan, bestselling author of Asura and The Bahubali Series wrote that the author’s vision, and the world he has created is breathtaking and fascinating. The Indian Fantasy Fiction genre finally comes of age with this book. 

The San Fransico Book Review praised the reimagined vedic India and wrote that through humor, torture, gore, lust, magic, dangerous power games and bloodcurdling battles, Sons of Darkness takes us on an unforgettable wild journey set in re-imagined Vedic India.

Following the success of Amish’s Shiva trilogy, the Indian book market was flooded with books that were retelling known stories hoping to cash in on the craze. But most of them were shoddy and turned into pulp fiction porn that you find at railway stations and bus terminals and were a headache for lovers of books and good storytelling. 

Sons of Darkness and Gourav’s imagination have taken the bold step of exploring the relatively untapped territory of Indian dark grim fantasy with a leap of faith. As you turn the pages and explore this world, you are bound to shocked, awed and blown away. This is just the beginning of Raag of Rta. Stay tuned for more from this young author and lawyer.