Ganesha Goes to Lunch - Book Review

‘Ganesha Goes to Lunch’ is a new book by Kamla Kapur. It has 24 stories based on Hindu myths and legends and will be in bookstores in March 2007.

The tribune reports:

…24 stories, ‘developed from India’s rich and vast ocean of Hindu myths, legends, and folktales and whose timeless quality lends itself to reinterpretation in every age’ writes Kamla in her preface. 

“It is easy to see how Indian myth has become the repository of all our wisdom and solace. The gods, like us, are all perishable, yet timeless, like Vishnu asleep on the primeval ocean, appearing and disappearing in his incarnations, like bubbles in the river of time,” she writes.” 

“Ganesh Goes to Lunch’ is Kamla’s ‘chant’ to an ongoing passion in myths and legends. In fact her first book of poetry Radha Sings published in 1987 comprises of Radha talking to Krishna through a series of love songs.

Indian Express reports:

A lot of research has gone into each story, admits Kamla, who read up on everything she could lay her hands on. “There’s been no systematic and methodical selection, the mention of any myth that made me sit up, and stopped me in my track was picked, basic instinct worked here and each story has been a process of self-discovery, they’ve all moved me,” smiles Kamla.