Sundara Kãnda: Hanuman's Odyssey

While Mahabharata's Bhagvad-Gita is taken as a philosophical guide, Ramayana's Sundara Kãnda is sought for spiritual solace; many believe that reading it or hearing it recited would remove all hurdles and usher in good tidings! Miracles apart, it's in the nature of this great epic to inculcate fortitude and generate hope in man for it's a depiction of how Hanuman goes about his errand against all odds.
Besides, it portrays how Seetha, on the verge of self-immolation, overcomes despair to see life in a new light? With rhythm of its verse and the flow of the narrative this sloka to sloka transcreation of the canto beautiful of Valmiki's adi kavya - the foremost poetical composition in the world, Hanuman's Odyssey that paves the way for Rama to rescue his kidnapped wife is bound to charm the readers and listeners alike.
Interestingly, as the following verse illustrates, it was the forerunner of the magic realism of our times - "Gripped she then him by shadow / Cast which Hanuman coast to coast, Recalled he in dismay then / What Sugreev said at outset / That one fiend had aptitude / To grip its prey by mere shadow."
On a personal note, my paternal grandfather, Bulusu Thimmaiah-garu, like many in his time, was a life-long practitioner of Sundara Kãnda parayana (the epic's daily recital in part or full), whose spirituality could have providentially guided me in this, rather an effortless, trans-creative endeavour.

BS Murthy is an Indian novelist, playwright, short story, non-fiction 'n articles writer, translator, a 'little' thinker and a budding philosopher in 'Addendum to Evolution: Origins of the World by Eastern Speculative Philosophy' that was originally published in The Examined Life On-Line Philosophy Journal, Vol. 05 Issue 18, Summer 2004.
BS's body of work of ten ebooks, in varied genres, comprises of Benign Flame: Saga of Love, Jewel-less Crown: Saga of Life, Crossing the Mirage: Passing through youth (plot and character driven novels all), Glaring Shadow: A stream of consciousness novel, Prey on the Prowl: A Crime Novel, Stories Varied: A Book of Short Stories, Onto the Stage: Slighted Souls and other stage and radio plays, Puppets of Faith: Theory of Communal Strife (A critical appraisal of Islamic faith, Indian polity 'n more), a novel non-fiction, possibly a new genre, Bhagvad-Gita : Treatise of self-help and Sundara Kãnda: Hanuman's Odyssey, trans-creations in verses in contemporary English idiom.
However, his only contribution in Telugu, his mother tongue, is his short story తప్పటడుగులు.
While his fiction emanated from his conviction that for it to impact readers, it should be the soulful rendering of characters rooted in their native soil but not the hotchpotch of local and alien caricatures sketched on a hybrid canvas, all his body of work was borne out of his passion for writing, matched only by his love for English language.
He, a graduate mechanical engineer from Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra, Ranchi, India, is a Hyderabad-based Insurance Surveyor and Loss Assessor since 1986.