Narendra Kohli - Abhyudaya

Abhyudaya

Narendra Kohli took the entire material of the Ramayana and wrote a huge 1300 page novel "Abhyudaya" in four parts (now published in 2 volumes). This was perhaps the first novel in any language that dealt with the entire Ramayana. As a novel, by definition of the genre, it must be contemporary, progressive, modern, and logic based. Its basic story line comes from the cultural tradition of India and therefore it portrays the higher values of life. Abhyudaya shows the greatness of human kind, and the boundlessness of life. It frees the reader from all dilemmas of his intellect and traditional values. Through this book, the reader gets answers to his/her defiant questions, and solutions for his/her doubts related to the story of Ram. This book has been hugely welcomed and has changed the direction of Hindi novels.

In Abhyudaya, Kohli has successfully exemplified Rama as a committed humanist and a karma-yogi who deeply believes and works toward creating a society on the true basis of equality, liberty and fraternity. His Rama is a revolutionary thinker who in his search for truth and fight for justice questions each and every stuck-in-time and dead convention of his time and place, is an idealist dreamer and a meticulous planner who is also powerful and capable of building a utopian society in actuality. Narendra Kohli’s Rama in Abhyuday, is not a perfected God who doesn’t need to deal with personal dilemmas and inner conflicts, but is a yogi who is able to grasp reality with a deep yogic insight and with a calm, detached and disinterested reason and a keen intuitive perception can transcend his dilemmas and doubts to plunge into action. I believe modern minds of today can more easily have true and meaningful reverence for such a Rama. I can see that such a Rama will make many more devotees among the present generation Indians than the Rama of Tulsidas or Rama of the famous TV serial by Ramanand Sagar.