Vritrahan, by Ratul Chakraborty
Vritrahan is a stunning work in free verse by Ratul Chakraborty that retells the story of Vritra.
When a book is praised by none other than the late Bibek Debroy as ‘a remarkable work… transcends the Vritra story’, and when Sanjeev Sanyal calls it ‘a ‘mad’ project to single-handedly revive the ancient Indian tradition of composing epics’, you know you have a unique book in your hands.
The story of Vritra is an old one. It is found in the first mandala of the Rig Veda, where Vritra is depicted as the personification of famine. Most will however know Vritra from the Mahabharata, where his account is found in at least two places. The primary narrative is in the Udyoga (thirty-third) and Teertha-Yaatra (forty-ninth) upa parvas, in the Agastya and Indravijaya upakhyaanas, respectively. Furious with Indra for having killed his noble son, Trishiras, Prajapati Tvastha created the fearsome asura, Vritra, and tasked him with defeating and destroying Indra.
Vritra is born from a yagna, from the flames of revenge.
‘The Rageborn. The Restrainer. The Obstacle. Ahi. The Serpent. Vritra. The Dragon.’ Much as Ambaa was reborn as Shikhandi, from the inferno of retribution, Vritra was born from the yagna of revenge. Ambaa got her desire; Vritra didn’t. Indra lived, reborn a wiser God. After a brief détente between the two, Indra took advantage of an opportunity and killed Vritra. Sage Dadhichi’s bones became the raw material for a lethal thunderbolt—the Vajra, that Indra wielded to destroy Vritra. This act of killing two brahmanas, Trishiras and Vritra, led to a sequence of events that saw Indra flee his throne, world order descend into chaos, the rise of adharma, the drying up of the oceans, Nahusha’s instatement as the new Indra, and eventually to the descent of Ganga on to earth to restore order, á¹›tá. But that is a tale for another time.
Vritrahan’s narrative strands are held together by a sutradhar, fittingly so. The book is in free verse, and within this framework, Ratul employs different styles and structures in composition. When Tvastha discovers his three-headed son’s corpse, he asks nature, its streams, flowers, the altar, and summons Agni. This passage of several pages itself would make the book a winner, but there is much more. There are reflections on the nature of the cosmic cycle, of the fall and rise of even the king of the Gods. When Tvastha quips that ‘Dharma is often simple’, it is tempting to view it as a rejoinder to the oft-repeated phrase in the Mahabharata, ‘Dharma is subtle’! Certainly, this was Bheeshma’s response to Draupadi’s pointed poser in the infamous game of dice, when it should have been ‘simple’.
Vritra and his army of Kaleyas can be seen as not just as ‘a reaction to adharma’, but also an ‘incarnation of avidya’. For this reason, Vritra had to die, and Indra would have to suffer the consequences, as the cycle of karma demands.
Gods represented the unfathomable, the infinite. The human mind cannot comprehend the infinite — ‘Sanity is impossible for the mortal mind.’ In the act of making the Gods comprehensible, we also diminish them, make them human, and project on to them human faults and frailties. In that insight also lies a deeper question about the nature of our investigation of how and what we deify.
The story ends with Vritra’s death, followed by a brief epilogue.
Where does one place Ratul’s Vritrahan? First, as a standalone work of creative imagination, it is remarkable, perhaps even unprecedented in recent times. To compare it with other works of free verse that are sometimes found on bestseller lists would be literary heresy, so elevated it is in comparison. To put it flippantly, like comparing Chivas Regal and toddy.
Second, as a text that draws on and invites the reader into the world of philosophy, dharma, adharma, karma, vidya, avidya, and the timeless circle of life and death, it succeeds quite well.
Third, it can also be seen as a play, which it is, and in that estimation it is an attempt to revive the ancient Indian art of public storytelling.
When done well, poetry evokes a sense of wonder at what is implied and the imagery it evokes. The reader is invited to engage in a deeper manner with the text than is often the case with prose. When done well, it can be a profoundly moving experience. On the other hand, doggerel, especially unintentional, or ‘Instapoetry’, as it is also sometimes called, often represents the nadir of the unwholesome confluence of mediocrity and pretentiousness.
Vritrahan is far from mediocre. Nor is it pretentious; it is unapologetically ambitious. It scales altogether a whole new peak of creativity, ambition, and craft.
In conclusion, this book is stunning in several aspects. For those who read Ratul’s first book, Sutradhar, this may not come as a surprise, given its breadth and vision. If you have not, then you should read both books. As a pessimistic prediction, this book is probably not going to rock the sales charts, for it will have no eye-popping marketing budget, garner little attention from mainstream media, command a sparse presence at physical bookstores, and will hold little appeal with social media influencers and podcasters. But Vritrahan is among those few books you are likely to remember years from now, for all the right reasons. Do yourself a favour and read this one.
This review was first published in The Sunday Guardian on March 30, 2025.
© 2025, Abhinav Agarwal (अà¤िनव अग्रवाल). All rights reserved.
