Ashok Banker is an altogether different writer with a leaning towards history &mdash; bothu00a0legendary as well as recorded. Having written series on epics like Ramayana and Mahabharata, the 49-year-old&rsquo;s upcoming work deals with five unusual love stories from Hindu mythology. What&rsquo;s more unusual though is Ashok writing on subjects he wasn&rsquo;t always very familiar with as a kid! He tells CS why so. <img alt="Ashok Banker" src="http://images.mid-day.com/2013/mar/Ashok.jpg" style="width: 500px; height: 616px;" /> Who: Ashok Banker What: On his writings PIC/ Abhinav Kocharekaru00a0 Irony of it all I come from a mixed background, not a typical Indian household. My dad was married to my mother for just three months after my birth and I ended up growing up in my grandma&rsquo;s house. And she was from British Sri Lanka with Goan roots and the extended family were Scot, Dutch and Irish. As a result, I was exposed to pan-European culture and food but was far away from my Hindu identity. So out of curiosity, I started asking around &mdash; my friends were as clueless as I was! Ergo, I started reading precociously at a very young age. An unknown world Thanks to our countless legacies, we come to understand that a different world apparently existed once upon a time where people were civilized for real. They had a great culture and a heritage too. Of course, they had frailties but they were keen to learn from their mistakes. They made sure the stories don&rsquo;t fade away by orally passing on the tales to the next generation. Isn&rsquo;t that a remarkable achievement? The least we can do is ensure the same for the future. Lost in translation Most of the Hindu mythology read today is abridged in nature. It&rsquo;s nearly impossible to find the unabridged versions. So my aim has been to write these stories without oversimplifying them and keeping the Sanskrit nuances intact. If you notice, a majority of the previous efforts in this direction actually backfired because they created a black-and-white image where the Pandavas are the good guys and the Kauravas are the bad guys when it&rsquo;s not that simple. Unlikely Bollywood There are very few Hindi films that deal with Hindu mythology. There are several reasons why this is so. But I like to believe that Bollywood regards its stars as Gods, so they are scared to compete with the real devas (laughs). Influences Even though I read about 500 books a year, I won&rsquo;t call myself a huge fan of fantasy writers. On the contrary, Tagore and Henry James are my favourites. I&rsquo;m also influenced by modern women poets like Erica Jong and Joyce Carol Oates. u00a0

He looks a bit like Chetan Bhagat but that's where the similarities end. 

Banking on mythology

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Banking on mythology

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