Kalnami by Sumit Nag [Hardcover]

"On the night of Krishna Ashtami, in two different prison cells of the same prison, at the same moment, a human and a god are born. That god is none other than Lord Krishna himself. But the human? No one remembers him. Right after birth, their life paths diverge according to the natural course of fate. Yet they repeatedly come face-to-face at different stages of life, in different places—sometimes in Vrindavan, sometimes in Mathura, sometimes in Hastinapur or Kurukshetra. How a boy raised among cowherds gradually became a god—the tale is narrated in complete logical detail, while on the other side, the extraordinary life story of the forgotten human is also described. The rise of the human to challenge the god and their conflicts and reunions form the heart of this novel. Though set against the backdrop of the Mahabharata, the novel metaphorically addresses current issues like casteism, historical distortions and misinterpretations, yellow journalism, political propaganda, autocracy, and other major problems of the present time. Amidst all these, it portrays the life struggles and truth-seeking of a true statesman and a fate-driven human."