Wednesday 11 July 2018

A Peep 'Into the Great Hearts'


BRIEF SYNOPSIS OF INTO THE GREAT HEART

The second novel in the Sikh Saga series, Into the Great Heart, begins where the first book, The Singing Guru, ends: with the entry of Bhai Lehna, later to become Guru Angad, the second Sikh Guru who succeeded Guru Nanak. While some historical characters, like Bhai Buddha, a child prodigy who lived to 101 and spanned the lifetimes of many gurus, are carried over from the first novel into the sequel, several new ones are added, mainly women. 

The second book is full of female characters from Sikh History that have never been given voice before, like Guru Nanak's wife, Mata Sulakhni, sister, Bebe Nanaki, Guru Angad's daughter, Amro, and many more who are just footnotes in Sikh history. 

The story is told from the points of view of many characters, but Bhai Buddha is the chief narrator who recounts the events in the dera of Kartarpur to Bhai Mardana because the latter is too old, being 10 years older than Guru Nanak, to spend much time at the dera. 

Though Lehna (Guru Angad) is a primary personage in Into The Great Heart, Guru Nanak continues to be the main character till his death at the end of the novel. 

After his wanderings all over the world he settled down as a farmer and guru at the place he founded called Kartarpur. The sequel is mainly set in Kartarpur though a few scenes between Lehna and his wife, Khivi, are set in Khadur, where they lived.


The main conflicts in the novel are between Lehna and Guru Nanak’s two sons who are jealous of Guru Nanak’s love for Lehna; between Guru Nanak’s wife, Sulakhni, who wants her sons to succeed, and Guru Nanak who does not care for blood lines but wants the most spiritually worthy to succeed him; between Sulakhni and Nanaki, Guru Nanak’s sister; and between Mardana’s granddaughter, Aziza, who is a child prodigy in music and wants, against all odds, to become a musician, and her mother, Nasreen, who forbids it.

http://bit.ly/IntoTheGreatHeart

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