Sudha Murthy explores unusual stories of Rama, Krishna in new book

Popular author Sudha Murty's new book for children deals with lesser-known and unusual stories about Rama and Krishna, their lineage and descendants.

"The Upside-Down King: Unusual Tales about Rama and Krishna" is her third book in the series featuring unusual stories from Indian mythology, the other two being "The Serpent's Revenge: Unusual Tales from the Mahabharata" and "The Man from the Egg: Unusual Tales about the Trinity".

She says children of all ages still find stories of the past interesting and that encouraged her to write "The Upside Down King", published by Puffin Books.

Murthy will write two more books in the series.

"The next volume will be on women in mythology, not Sita or Draupadi but other women. And the last book in the series will be on rishis," she says.

The tales in this collection surround the two most popular avatars of Lord Vishnu and their lineage.

"There are lot of unusual stories which are equally beautiful and not known to many people. So this is a book of such stories," Murthy told PTI.

"Mythology is part of our heritage, part of our identity at times because anywhere in India you will find the name of Rama or Krishna in one or the other form. When someone is named after Rama, some questions come up. Why is it so? Then I look for the stories behind that," she says.

For Murthy, writing mythology is a little different from the other genres as the characters and the storylines are already well known.

"The criteria for writing mythological books are different. Because the results are known, the end is known. Somebody has created that limit and you have to play within that limit," she says.

Murthy, the chairperson of the Infosys Foundation, says she wrote mythology for the first time for her daughter.

"When she wants to tell her children, she should be clear about mythology," she thought.

She also wanted to find out if children still loved the era of magical and meaningful mythological stories.