Kundan Chhabra

This is not actually a book about “communications”. That's just a marketing angle to sell you the book to hide what it's really about. 
It's a manual for mass hypnosis & mind control.
He gave the game away even right from the first two chapters by giving examples from FBI & CIA agents. Come on!

It has a few good tips & an interesting 3-step framework for group communications (yes it's mostly for groups rather than 1-1 although there's a few examples of 1-1)....but on the whole, it's just meh! 😂

The best way to self-improvement is to re-connect to your own pre-colonial pre-imperialist Indigenous ancestral spiritual practices. Otherwise, you are just a Colonizer stealing other people's wisdom you are not entitled to, and have done nothing to deserve.

I will probably write a more detailed review on my own Substack but here all I want to say is that there's nothing new nor even original about this story... it's basically the same old rehashed centuries old racist colonial classist Hinduphobic anti India anti poor “poverty porn” written for the Western gaze by a Brown colonial stooge/proxy.

It's the same old Marxist influenced “poor people become desperate, and desperation leads to violence and even murderous,” and the related “look at these poor violent murderous Hindu/Indian savages turning on each other in their failed/failing state” while of course the “great” Amerika is their “savior” country they try to escape to as climate refugees because in 2050 in this story, Kolkatta is flooding and going through a famine.

It's a lot of American exceptionalism and hubris because the truth is that American coastal cities will also be flooded in 2050 and will also most likely experience a famine. In fact, it's more likely that American climate refugees will escape to India in 2050... and if you don't believe that, check your racism and Colonialism.

It's also a lot of “human nature is violent” when in reality it's completely false . Colonial nature is violent, not human nature. It's a lot of colonial projection mixed with fears of violent retaliation by the poor for how these Imperialists meddle in Global South countries, destabilize them and keep them poor while they then blame them and use their resulting poverty to justify and validate their racism including Hinduphobia and anti-India anti-poor and anti-Indigenous bigotry.

And the ending is so predictable! OMG I knew where this was going halfway through it .If you were surprised by the ending, I feel very sorry for you because it shows me how pathetically naive you are it's disgusting, dangerous and harmful! 

Wake up from your privilege and check your Epistemological privilege and Epistemological Western gaze!

So it's definitely less than a 1-Star read for me!

It's transhumanism propaganda.
It's also nested loop programming.
It's a story within a story within a story within a story.
I don't like propaganda. Hence why I removed 3 stars.
But at least the outer story is good. Hence why it's 2 stars. 
I also find the self-referential self-praise comical and ridiculous, especially because the inner robot story isn't even that good yet the fictional author in the outer story that wrote the inner story is repeatedly praised as one of greatest of all time. But the fictional author is also the author herself. So this is actually disguised self-praise, sneaking in like we wouldn't notice, like the author thinks we are stupid as readers. 🤣

I despise nested loop programming because it's actually appropriated from us Indigenous Hindus but watered down, twisted and weaponized for mind control but we never used it for that. 

We used it for just the opposite - expanding the mind and stabilizing ourselves, helping us reach union with Brahmin and thus have us be liberated. For us, Stories within stories help us understand there are worlds within worlds.

Unique magic system that blends science & magic - kinda computerized or at least “algorithmic” magic? With a little bit of applied physics and math without being overwhelming.

One of the best depictions of colonialism, racism, imperialism and cultural cult mind control cults (yes it's a cult. I refuse to call it “religion”, and I have my reasons which is too much to share here). 

And especially - wonderful debunking of the (Abrahamic Supremacist originated) Good Evil False Binary. Especially with a morally grey FMC who is both victim AND perpetrator who nevertheless benefits from an oppressive system.

This is like the fiction counterpart to the nonfiction “Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World” by Anand Giridharadas because they both show how easy it is for colonizers and Imperialists to justify themselves and lose integrity, even at the”Middle Class” or Upper Middle Class level - yes you can still be an imperialists even if you are not rich or a billionaire. You can be their agent for example, wittingly or unwittingly. 

It's so so so GOOD at showing us the arrogant shameless colonial mindset and the hypocrisy of abusive oppressive people wanting to delude themselves as “good persons”. 

Like most dystopian novels, I still have issues with us becoming desensitized to violence and oppression but even in that regard, the novel does a better job than others to make it clear what's happening is sooo NOT ok...

My number one concern is still us becoming brainwashed with the sense of the INEVITABILITY of imperialism because then it can make us apathetic or not want to fight back. I think this story still risks that but is still more nuanced than others I have read. 

All that said, I still have 2 issues with it:

1. It still has the “fixing the bigot” trope: a marginalized person helps “evolve” the more privileged person although it's a bit more complicated here because the FMC is a woman with class privilege and race privilege but her poor marginalized assistant is a man with neither class privilege nor race privilege.

2. It still is told from the POV of someone with class privilege,  race privilege and more importantly, colonial privilege instead of the Indigenous person. Hence it's still written through the Colonial gaze. 

Overall, this book will stay with me for a looong time! 

One of the most beautiful stories I've ever read. 

I was really worried this book would be Hinduphobic because it's unfortunately been marketed as “romantasy” which is actually a very toxic genre. 

This is NOT “romantasy” at all although it does seemingly have some of its tropes. For example, “forced proximity”. However, it's done in a way that actually respects the woman's agency.  And there's no “Stockholm Syndrome” here unlike in the Romantasy genre.

It's also a very slow burn. And the lovemaking scene, when it happens, is actually not at all a gratuitous add-on but essential and integral to the plot and actually drives the story forward. 

So, if you are expecting smut, don't read this book. 

If you want to read a deep explanation of power, relationships, love, spirituality, Dharma and especially, what us Indigenous Hindus call “Shiva Shakti”, read it.

Note that this is not really written for the Western gaze nor the colonial gaze but Westerners might still be able to interpret parts of it through Western hypocritical ‘feminism” unfortunately because even this author is not reading the room she is getting published in.  

For example, I heard a Western reviewer say, “Typical of men to send a woman to solve their problems. Haha.” What?! That's such a shallow take. 

Although the author's intent is indeed to give, Meneka, the woman in the original story, a voice, and her own center stage, I see this story as neither “feminist” nor “anti-feminist”. I don't think our Indigenous stories can be seen through such a Western binary. 

(Side-note: what is it with our authors wanting to give little known female side characters a voice when we already have plenty of powerful women in our stories who take center stage! This plays right into Western Hinduphobic accusations that we are “patriarchal” which is really the Western left's word for “savage” just like “DEI” hire is the new N word for the Western right). We have a 9 day Goddess festival that we celebrate at least twice a year! 

All that said, this story is still really good at showing how much men and women, masculine and feminine, Shiva Shakti, are actually given equal weight in our Indigenous culture and religion. 

(Note that we are indeed the world's largest largely intact Indigenous culture left on Earth. We are also among the oldest continuously surviving Indigenous people. We have been Indigenous to these lands from Afghanistan to Indonesia for thousands of years.).

If you want to understand pre colonial Indigenous ways of living and relating while wrestling with complex moral dilemmas, this story is a good intro. Not the best. I think Saraswati's Intelligence by Professor Vamsee Juluri is much better but this is still pretty good. 

The lovemaking scene especially is one of the most beautiful. Meneka's passionate speech on behalf of Ma Shakti is so powerful. There are so many breathtaking moments here. 

I just wished we lived in a different world instead of constantly answering to the Western gaze and colonial gaze, and constantly being put into the defensive instead of just standing our own ground. 

I learned a lot but it's a bit disappointing that there's only one Chapter on disinformation campaigns by China and none on disinformation campaigns by Arab countries 
Most of it is focused on the US, the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies. 

There's also very little on US disinformation campaigns in Latin America.

Nor is there about how disinformation campaigns fit into overall intelligence cycles and government strategy and imperialist strategy.

Hence why it's 4 stars instead of 5.

But I do understand how little space there is to fit everything into a book because it's already at 437 pages even with this limited scope! 🤣

After all, it's a very ambitious undertaking: covering almost a century of disinformation: 1921 to 2017!

But I do like how thorough, systematic methodical, and thematically sectioned this book is. 

I learned that Western Abrahamic history doesn't really repeat itself but has actually never changed. That's my number one lesson!

And I learned so many new facts and overall themes that help me understand disinformation way better.

Initial impressions because I read it at 2.5 times the speed despite it being a short 4 hour book. Lol.
So I might update this review later.
Overall I liked it 

It was in 2nd person which itself is rare.
Additionally, telling the story like it's a movie script but sort of mostly inside people's heads?
(hence the title “Interior Chinaown”).

AND also using mostly stereotype names instead of actual character names to show how much White culture has dehumanized them. 
It's like a mirror held up to Whiteness. Especially White Hollywood.
All this was clever!

But this strength was also its weakness: it felt like Maybe it should have been nonfiction instead of fiction? It felt like it was written specifically to “teach” White people rather than an actual story?

Therefore, docking one star from it.

(Apparently this has been made into a Hulu tv series. Not surprised. That was another thing: it felt more like an audition to Hollywood for tv script, ironically,  rather than an actual story. So yeah, I wasn't the actual customer but merely the  end-user?).

Also: telling it in 2nd person felt like the author was trying to hypnotize me? I don't like 2nd person narrative for that reason mainly. I don't want to be hypnotized without my explicit clear informed consent. 

(for this reason too, I don't like Western stories with dream sequences either. But that's for a review of a different book. lol).

This is your typical White liberal attempt at pretending to be “not-racist” by having “diverse” characters but places them in the same racist tropes as Hollywood such as “magical negro” (except now it's secularized but same role, same vibes) and “fixing the bigot” - the Black girlfriend plays a “stabilizing” force for the of course White selfish narcissistic FMC.

Considering Hank Green's recent controversy regarding his defense of Taylor Swift's necklace, (,and also his mysogynist take on knitting), this is not surprising at all.


Then there's the very suspicious repeated use of hypnotic devices throughout the book: the elevator in the dream sequence. as someone who has deeply studied hypnosis for more than a decade, I find it deeply disturbing because that sort of stuff is usually used to embed a hidden message in your subconscious mind - what's he trying to program our minds with?

In addition, the repeated use of this device in this story specifically also creates and reinforces the emotional conditioning of becoming increasingly fragmented and lost to forces larger than you and beyond your control, which the main character faces. 

That's a good seque into the next issue I have with the book: it seems to covertly glorify fragmentation and dissociation or at least make it acceptable - this is Imperialist propaganda to make us feel internal conflicts and become increasingly fragmented and dissociated because it makes us easier to mind control.

That gets me into one of most problematic messages of the book. I quote:

“Sure,” she said, unconvinced. “The point is that you hate it when money makes you do things, even when they're interesting things. And I get that, it sucks to have money push you around, and maybe you're a little less used to it than the average person.” “That's not fair,” I replied, a bit hurt. “Andy is ‘freelancing' because his dad can just keep paying his rent while he builds his portfolio.” She laughed. “Yeah, of course there are people who have more than you. Hell, I have more than you. But you still have way more than most people. But whatever. You're you, and you don't like doing normal stuff, and the normal thing when someone offers you ten thousand dollars to do something is to do it. Even if it's stressful and scary.”

There's so many issues with this passage alone but my biggest concern is the normalization of the idea that it's “normal” for people to do ANYTHING for money, implying it's “natural” or “human nature”. No, it's colonial Imperialist nature. Just because it's been normalized in Colonial Imperialist culture doesn't mean it's “natural” nor “normal”. This makes me question the author's integrity because this idea is never even questioned.. Instead, they move on to the larger topic of the FMC being scared or stressed about being on TV because the next sentence is:

“I'm not scared of being on TV,” I asserted. “Yeah, you are!” she countered. I checked, and I found that she was right. “

See: this is actually yet another example of hypnotic embedding a message: it's buried inside this bigger topic of her stress about being on TV: it's a smaller scale version of hypnotic device “stacked realities” or “nested loops “ which is usually a story within a story within a story but here it's just a message within a larger narrative about something else...

Also: what's up with a White man writing a White queer FMC and her Black queer girlfriend? That itself is questionable. Did he have sensitivity readers? Did he get feedback from White women and Black women including Black queer women before publishing? And even if he did, did he only listen to those who coddled him rather than challenge him?

Then there's also the constant use of the manipulation tactic “lampshading” - acknowledgement without accountability.

EDIT 01/11)/2025: one more thing: it's also an Abrahamic Messiah propaganda because of what happens at the end.

 Overall, it's just disgusting really!

So, no, this is definitely a one star read for me! Actually, less than one star read!

Book Review of “The Ministry of Time” by Kaliane Bradley:

Summary: it feels like yet another Imperialist propaganda masquerading as “anti-imperialist”.

What I LIKED:

I liked the premise. The idea of time as a “limited resource” was clever and probably unique in the genre.  The idea that maybe time travel might be biologically fundamentally unsafe for the human body was interesting. It was intriguing to read a story around THAT uncertainty because I had never thought of it that way. 

I hated the execution.

What I DISLIKED:

1. The “Forced Proximity” trope.


2. The gender swapped ‘'born sexy yesterday “ trope. In fact, the time travel “fish out of water” aspect makes it way worse because Graham Gore is absolutely dependent on his female “Bridge” who essentially is his quasi-parent, and he is psychologically “younger” even though chronologically they're both probably about the same age? Gore , as a 19th century man knows absolutely nothing about the 21st CENTURY, is forced to learn from his assigned “teacher”, his “bridge” to the 21st century. He is also essentially a kidnap victim, making the whole “romance” story kinda “Stockholm Syndrome” too?  Swapping the genders didn't make it any better for me. In fact, he is also described as physically attractive and having a “charm” that's “not directed at anyone in particular”. Those are literally part of the Born Sexy Yesterday trope. 

3. The sex scene was not believable for me because I don't think a 19th century White man from 1847 would have cared that much about consent? Remember that marital rape was legal back then because wives were legally subservient to their husbands, essentially “property”. Age of consent was 13. Even today in UK, age of consent is 16. It's 14+16 in many European countries. Disgusting! And even outside marriage, rape was rarely prosecuted although technically illegal. The only way it was believable was because of the Born Sexy Yesterday trope. He may have cared about consent purely out of fear of repercussions from pissing off his kidnapper who had institutional power over him. This power imbalance is barely explored.

4. Gore, a British naval officer, expresses shock at learning about the Holocaust. This is disingenuous hypocrisy at worse, and pathetic naivety at best. The British Christian colonizers killed far more people than Hitler. The Bengal Famine of 1770 alone killed 10 million, ok? And their Tasmanian genocide nearly wiped out the Indigenous locals. The British Christian colonizers committed MULTIPLE genocides, atrocities and massacrss even before 1847, during the lifetime of Graham Gore. If such a White man from 1847 expressed shock at the Holocaust, I would NOT fall in love with him. I'd be disgusted at worst, and pity his naivety at best. 

5. This gets me to the author's own motivation for writing this book. By her own admission, she wrote it because she had a crush on Graham Gore, a real historical figure from the 19th. She found him physically attractive and liked his “cute dimples”. Then she started writing short stories based on her attraction even though she knew so little about him as there's hardly any info. It makes it very self-indulgent.

6. The author does redeem herself a little bit at the end by implying that the Ministry's Imperialist actions had horrible consequences 200 years from now but it's too little too late for me as a reader because it didn't feel like the main part of the story? Especially because the power imbalance regarding Consent from above were barely discussed. 

7. The way it ended it also feels like not a real story but more like this whole thing is an “audition” for a TV series or something else? It's clear I am not her real “customer” but merely the “end-user”. The real customers are Imperialist organizations, corporations and global intelligence agencies. And sure enough, I discover that it's being made into a BBC TV series.

I might write a more detailed review on my Substack later but for now, this is all I have to say.

I may post a detailed review later. I liked parts of it but didn't like other parts, such as the Tokenism, lack of intersectionality and Appropriation of the Civil rights movement and making it about dragons.

That said, I do want to debunk reviews claiming it's “transphobic” and “terfy”.

By their own admission, some of them didn't even finish the book. Please don't write public reviews if you have not even finished the book because you only spread misinformation.

In the book, trans women and even a few boys also undergo “dragoning”. Ok? so, stop making false accusations! Cut that out!

I do like the excellent portrayal of how horrible White men were in the 1950s! 

However, the book lacks focus because even though it's supposed to be an allegory, its lack of focus makes it unclear what exactly “dragoning” is a metaphor FOR!

It would have been better as a series of interconnected short stories. 

So, basically it's a mixed bag. Hence my 3 star rating. Not bad but not great!

Very informative! I liked the premise but I didn't like some of her conclusions, such as thinking that Abrahamic Supremacy (Christianity and Islam) is the answer to racism. Nah. That's literally the root of it. The cause of something is not going to be the solution...

I also don't like her bias supporting the duopoly (Democrats & Republicans). 

Book Review of Goddess of the River by Vaishnavi Patel.
Review by Kundan Chhabra.

This is not a story. It's hypocritical, bigoted propaganda, including transphobia.

Before I go on, let me define terms first so you understand exactly where I am coming from:

Hypocrisy:  the act of pretending to have beliefs or act in a way that contradicts one's true beliefs

Transphobia:  consists of negative attitudes, feelings, or actions towards transgender people or transness in general. Transphobia can include fear, aversion, hatred, violence, or anger towards people who do not conform to social gender roles.

Queer erasure (also known as LGBTQIA+ erasure) refers to the tendency to intentionally or unintentionally remove LGBTQ groups or people from the record or downplay their significance, which includes lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people. This erasure can be found in many written and oral texts, including popular and scholarly texts. Including this book. I will prove it to you.

Misgender: refers to (someone, especially a transgender person) using a word, especially a pronoun or form of address, that does not reflect their gender identity. In addition, misgendering can also include deliberately ignoring or removing someone's trans identity completely. It's, therefore, transphobic queer erasure.

Manipulation Techniques (Explained by Qwen AI but you can verify it with sources yourself): 
” Strawmanning: This involves misrepresenting or exaggerating the traits, actions, or motives of other characters (often antagonists or secondary characters) to make them seem worse than they are, thereby making the protagonist appear more heroic by comparison.

Black-and-White Morality: This is when a story presents characters as either purely good or purely evil, with no moral ambiguity. The main character is portrayed as completely virtuous and justified, while all others are depicted as irredeemably bad or harmful.

Vilifying the Opposition: This occurs when every other character around the protagonist is given negative traits or malicious intent to highlight the hero's righteousness. It's a way of stacking the deck narratively so that the audience sympathizes more strongly with the main character.

False Dichotomy: This refers to presenting situations where the protagonist is forced into a position where they must act heroically because everyone else is unreasonable, evil, or incompetent. It simplifies complex moral landscapes into overly simplistic choices.
 
 “While this technique can sometimes work in certain genres like melodrama or propaganda, it can feel unconvincing or manipulative if overused, especially in stories aiming for nuance and depth. Audiences often appreciate more complex portrayals of both heroes and villains, where motivations and conflicts are multifaceted.”

  (It's also very important to emphasize that this is exactly the type of dehumanizing propaganda used by Nazis, the Soviets, and Americans during both the “Red Scare” and the Vietnam War, and most relevantly, by the British Christian colonizers against us Indigenous Hindus during their colonial rule of India. So, it's frightening that it's being used in this book).

Hinduphobia: According to the Working Definition of Hinduphobia by the Understanding Hinduphobia Initiative: “Hinduphobia is a set of antagonistic, destructive, and derogatory attitudes and behaviors towards Sanatana Dharma (Hinduism) and Hindus that may manifest as prejudice, fear, or hatred”.

Christian supremacy refers to both the belief that Christianity is superior to other religions and a form of identity politics that asserts that Christians are superior to others and are, therefore, better suited to rule.

 Abrahamic Supremacy: the belief that the 3 “Abrahamic” ideologies (Christianity, Islam, and Judaism) are superior and anyone who doesn't believe in it is inferior and subhuman.

“What is the Marxist theory of culture?
In sum, Marxist historical materialism finds that culture is a social product, social tool, and social process resulting from the construction and use by social groups with diverse social experiences and identities, including gender, race, social class, and more.” - Oxford Research Encyclopedia. In fact, one of the main critiques of Marxist historical materialism is that it reduces culture, including Indigenous culture, into just a product of economics. It's therefore anti-Indigenous as it promotes cultural homogeneity. In addition, Karl Marx himself wrote anti-Semitic, anti-Indigenous, and Hinduphobic stuff.

Misogyny: dislike of, contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against women. - Oxford Dictionary. In storytelling, This can also include erasing, sidelining, downplaying, infantilizing, and reducing multi-dimensional female characters into tropes, stereotypes, or archetypes such as “Victim Hero”.  There is a lot of that going on in this “retelling” - complete erasure of most of the powerful, amazing women in the original Hindu epic Mahabharata, sidelining and downplaying the handful of remaining women, and infantilizing her FMC. Because it's being marketed as “progressive” and “feminist”, I find this extremely hypocritical.

Dehumanizing: depriving a person or group of positive human qualities. - Oxford Dictionary. It's also basically portraying them as subhuman. For example, openly calling them bigoted epithets: “animals,” “monsters,” and “uncivilized”. The author does a lot of that in this book.

Demonizing: the portrayal of something as wicked and threatening.
Exoticization:  the act of portraying someone or something as exotic, unusual, or different from the norm. It can also refer to the perception of people from other cultures as exotic. It can also be a form of “positive” dehumanizing: reducing a character only to their positive Qualities, thus dehumanizing them by reducing them to a trope. This is what the author has done to all her female characters.

Villainizing: to speak ill of someone or something, or to portray them as a villain. She has dehumanized all of the male characters except one via Demonization and villainizing them. Only Bhishma is given some nuance, and even then only a tiny bit.

The Demonization Exoticization False Binary is a subset of the Good Evil False Binary within Black and White Morality. It's the idea that Demonization and Exoticization are actually two sides of the same coin because they're both actually dehumanizing as you can see by the definitions above.

Story (as defined by Lisa Cron in her book “Story Genius”): “A story is about how the things that happen affect someone in pursuit of a difficult goal, and how that person changes internally as a result.”
Propaganda: a form of communication that aims to influence or persuade people to support a cause or point of view. It can be based on fact, but it often presents facts in a biased way. Propaganda can be used to manipulate people's emotions and attitudes.

Manipulation: the act of controlling or influencing someone or something, often in an unfair or underhanded way. It can involve using words, emotions, or situations to get what someone wants. 

Mind control: the act of altering a person's thoughts, feelings, or actions without their consent. It can involve psychological manipulation, brainwashing, or the use of technology. 

A “good vs evil” false binary refers to a flawed way of thinking that presents only two extreme options, “good” and “evil,” ignoring the vast spectrum of possibilities and nuances that exist between them.

Projection: A defense mechanism where someone attributes their own feelings to another person.

Western Gaze: a term used to describe when people from the West view people from other cultures with bias and preconceptions. It can also refer to how Western knowledge is considered superior to knowledge from other cultures. 

Reverse victimhood:  a tactic used by perpetrators to deflect blame and responsibility for their abusive behavior. It's also known as DARVO, which stands for Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender. 

Phew! I did these definitions first so that Hinduphobes, transphobes, and other bigots can't misconstrue my words - or at least make it harder!

For example, when I say that parts of the book are Marxist or influenced by Marxist propaganda, I don't refer to the economic theory but more specifically to the anti-Indigenous aspects of it, such as the aforementioned “Marxist historical materialism”. And before you try to demonize and dehumanize me into a stereotype: politically, I am neither left nor right. I am a decolonizing Indigenous person who grew up in a Punjabi Burmese family and a country where Hinduism, Buddhism, and Sikhism have a mutually respectful syncretic pluralistic relationship with each other.

Because let's be clear: this book is political propaganda.

Now that I got all that out of the way, let's get to my review: Yes. It's not a story. It's dehumanizing, bigoted, Hinduphobic, transphobic, queerphobic, misogynist, anti-Indigenous Marxist Abrahamic Supremacist propaganda made for the Western gaze. 

It's supposed to be a “retelling” of the Hindu epic Mahabharata but it's not even quite clear in the marketing materials. That means the story already exists. 

Retellings, especially of epics in a non-English language, are difficult as they require a lot of nuance. It's very important to be especially sensitive to the characters that have been historically marginalized by Abrahamic Supremacists, Colonizers, and Imperialists, especially trans people and women. Despite marketing this book as “progressive” and “feminist,” the author has, in fact, done the opposite. I will get to that in a bit but first

Were you able to root for any of the characters? No? Why? Here's why: there is no one to root for, because she has villainized almost everyone, sidelined the rest, and infantilized the narrator, who is also supposed to be the main character! Basically, every character has been reduced to a one-dimensional trope because the goal isn't to tell a story. It's dehumanizing propaganda.

DEHUMANIZATION in the book:

For example, almost all the male characters are openly called “animals,” “monsters,” and “uncivilized” and portrayed as such. Note that this is the same type of dehumanizing propaganda that the British Christian colonizers used against the largest largely intact Indigenous culture and people left on Earth: us Indigenous Hindus. In fact, they even called Kali-worshipping tribes “thugs,” criminalized them as such, and genocided 10 million of them, including newborn babies. 

So, Please note that dehumanizing bigoted language is the precursor to genocide. And because all the characters are Indigenous Hindus, it's qualified as Hinduphobia as defined above.

In fact, there were even moments in the book when she had her main character ask:

 “Would the world be better off without the Kuru line? If my son died, he would come home to me. And the rest of them... I did not believe them worth saving, worth ruling” (from Chapter 24).

This seems like an open call for our genocide?!

Unfortunately, the female characters are also dehumanized but using the other side of the coin in the Demonization Exoticization False Binary. First of all, the Mahabharata had a ton of amazing women. All but about 4 or 5 of them are completely erased. These few remaining are sidelined, downplayed, or worse, reduced to the Victim Hero trope. The FMC, especially, is infantilized repeatedly. She is a Goddess! Not a powerless petulant child! So infuriating and frustrating! How is all this “feminist”?

Queer Erasure and Transphobic Narrative Choices:

Then there's the queer erasure and misgendering of Shikandhi. The author has changed his story and completely removed his queer trans identity as a trans man. This is openly transphobic. 

I know why she did it, of course: because this is not written for us Indigenous Hindus but for the Western gaze; she doesn't want the Western reader to have even the slightest hint that ancient Hindus had trans people and accepted trans people or were aligned with modern-day “progressive” values.

For this reason, Arjun's genderfluidity story is also completely erased. Even Queen Draupadi's polyandry was hardly mentioned, but King Shantanu's marriages to multiple women were mentioned repeatedly.

The agenda of all this erasure is, of course, Hinduphobia, but unfortunately, queer erasure of trans identity is also transphobic. Hence, there's nothing “progressive” about this choice.

Inverted Narratives and Projection in the Book:

Then there are a lot of inverted narratives in which she has literally changed the story to its OPPOSITE, often projecting Abrahamic Supremacy onto the characters.

For example, she has a major male character literally quote a line from “Genesis 1:28” from the Bible (without creditting the source, of course): that men are to have “dominion over Nature”. This is actually the complete opposite of our Indigenous Hindu values. We love, respect, value, and even worship Mother Earth as “Ma Bhumi”, a Goddess.

In fact, this inversion starts right from the very first chapter itself when she begins vilifying our Indigenous Hindu deity Shiva and claims that generalized “humans” only want to “use” and “control” Nature such as the river Ma Ganga. This is not only a Christian projection but it's a projection of what the author herself is doing by writing this book: she is using Ma Ganga herself, infantilizing her and twisting her narrative to make a Hinduphobic psychological weapon to sell to her Hinduphobic Western audience for their Western gaze so that she can make millions by becoming their “sepoy”. She's the one using Ma Ganga for profit, literally. Hence, the first chapter is all projections on multiple levels.

And in Chapter 5:

“You look as though you are from Hastinapur,” Padma continued. “We have had visitors from the mountains before, and they are pale, closer to milk. You look like you've baked in the hot sun, like any commoner.”

This is very subtle propaganda implying that we have always had colorism. It's blatantly FALSE.

There's an essay by my friend Amit Majmudar, “Black Avatar: How Colorism Came to India,” in his book of the same name that debunks this and proves we didn't have colorism. In fact, we considered the color black to be the most beautiful color. In fact, he even quoted the Veda, which has instructions on how to make your child more dark-skinned to make them more attractive.  More recently, Marco Polo's writings also prove it further.  (Also this doesn't mean we had “reverse colorism” either. We did not oppress light-skinned people either).

“As he spoke, I could finally see some spark within him. He had been born to be king, a status earned not through merit but by the luck of his blood. But he still had a vision, inherited though it might be, driving him forward.”

This was the most annoying part of this chapter because it completely inverted the narrative. His ancestor King Bharat, despite having 9 sons, chose none of them as his heir but someone else entirely, based on merit rather than birth. It was initially shocking to everyone but history loves and respects him so much for it that our land itself is now named after him: “Bharat” in Hindi.

This theme is actually repeated when Ma Ganga saves baby Bhishma's life but takes him away for training in multiple subjects and disciplines. The reason she gave King Shantanu: “I understand your society wants leadership based on merit, not birth. That's why.”

Notice this is also completely inverted later on in the book. King Shantanu is portrayed as a cruel violent king who took the baby away from Ma Ganga! This never happened! That whole storyline was completely made up just to villainize Raja Shantanu!

INVERTED MESSAGING in the book:

Finally, we understand why the narrative is inverted to its complete OPPOSITE - because she's trying to change the message itself into the Marxist-inspired False Binaries of “Oppressor” and “oppressed”, and that violence for “justice” is somehow always justified.

In reality, the message of the actual Mahabharata is the opposite: we must always seek justice but we must seek peaceful means first. Violence must be the very last resort. That's why in the original, Krishna and the Pandavs tried for peace multiple times despite how much the Pandavs were unjustly treated. All this is minimized because all the male characters are portrayed as a bunch of bloodthirsty, war-mongering, violent savages who have always been at war for centuries. This is literally a colonial portrayal of us Indigenous Hindus.

Hinduphobic “Caste” narratives in the book:

Let's be clear: Caste is not Hindu. It's a colonial creation of the Christian, British, Portuguese, and Spanish Colonizers and Imperialists. We had “Varna” and “Jati,” which were NOT “Caste.” But the British Christian colonizers re-wrote our texts to make it look like Caste is Hindu to gaslight and mind control us Indigenous Hindus. There is a great book that explains this history called “Caste is not Hindu” by Guruji Sundara Raj Anantha. That's all the labor I am going to spend on that nonsense! Do your own labor to educate yourself and stop being a Hinduphobic bigot!

Shallow Portrayal of our Indigenous Hindu deity Shiva:

The author has such a childish understanding of our deity Shiva and a very colloquial understanding of the term “stoicism”.

I don't think she even knows that stoicism was created by Roman Imperialists?! There is a modern-day revival by White Imperialist authors like Ryan Holiday.

At one point she described Shiva as “the stoicism” of Shiva. No, Shiva is not “stoic”. That's a child's level of understanding.

Portrayal of our deity Krishna:

One of the inverted things in this propaganda is that the author has made Krishna much older than Bhishma even though in the original, Krishna is actually much younger. 

In addition, she has completely removed the Gita, the most important part of the Mahabharata. That's how I know this is a very unserious book, purely written for the entertainment of the Western gaze. That's a segue into another topic I want to talk about before I conclude:


Watered Down Use of the Word Mantra:

Chapter 12: ... “Even though I did not deserve it, my child loved me. I repeated this mantra to myself as I rose to my feet.”

Let's break down this quote from this propaganda tool: No, that's not a “mantra”. In fact, if something is written in the English lt, it's not a mantra at all! A mantra is a specific powerful thing in Hinduism and Buddhism. A Hindu goddess would not even say that! Ever! 

It's clear, even from this quote alone, that the author either doesn't even know all this or doesn't care. That's how I know she is disconnected from her Indigenous roots and Indigenous ancestral ways. She claims she is still a Hindu. Well then, at best she is a “cultural Hindu” or a “secular Hindu”, not an Indigenous Hindu.

Also, note that nowhere in her bio nor her social media marketing materials does she admit and embrace being Hindu. It was only when she was called out for her Hinduphobia for the previous book that she posted on Goodreads claiming to be Hindu. This lack of admission, especially in her bio, is a huge red flag!


The Marketing of this Book:

Seth Godin, in his book “The Purple Cow,” has said that your product itself has to be so different or stand out so much that it does its own marketing for you. In his own words, it has to be “remarkable”. But some people take the easy unethical route: instead of creating something truly “remarkable”, they merely create a product that's so divisive it creates conversation just because of that alone. It's not truly “remarkable”. It merely “stands out” solely because it's so hurtful to a large group of people that it creates a massive amount of today's number one marketing metric “engagement” - in this case, by hurting the largest largely intact Indigenous culture and people left on Earth: us Indigenous Hindus. (There are over a billion of us).

In other words, she created this product, this propaganda tool, not only because Hinduphobia sells but drama sells too. This is definitely not “art'. And per the definition of “story “ by Lisa Cron above, it's not even story. It's bigoted propaganda for the Hinduphobic transphobic Western gaze.


Conclusion:

And finally, because the author is hiding her self-hating Hinduphobic bigotry behind her reverse victimhood gaslighting narrative that she's being critiqued for writing a “feminist” “progressive” story, I want to re-emphasize that her choices are neither feminist nor progressive but in fact transphobic, patriarchal and Colonial. It's the same Hinduphobic   anti-Indigenous bigoted colonial propaganda that the British Christian colonizers have been doing for CENTURIES.

And because there's so little character growth, the main character is more of an infantilized POV character rather than a powerful Goddess with agency; and no one to root for, it's not even an enjoyable read.

Hence my 0.25 star read! Skip this because there are better retellings than this. 

The very fact that an entire BOOK had to be written with the title “Caste is not Hindu” shows the level and depth of Hinduphobia in the world.

And now, in at least 4 states in the United States, these bigoted Hinduphobic false narratives are being used to try to criminalize the largest largely intact Indigenous culture and people on Earth, us Hindus!

Caste is NOT Hindu. Caste is a creation of the Christian British, Portuguese and Spanish Colonizers.

This book clarifies exactly where “Caste” comes from while also clarifying our Indigenous Hindu terms “Varna* and “Jati”.

And no, “Varna” and “Jati” are NOT “Caste” either. For example, Varna was horizontal, NOT hierarchical. Nor was it based on birth. And people could change their Varna. And most importantly, it was just a philosophy, NOT ground reality.

“Jati” WAS ground reality but it's not “Caste” either. Read the book to learn all this in detail!

This is a very necessary book for our times, especially if you truly want to “decolonize “ instead of ironically always falling for ironically colonial narratives masquerading as “Decoloniality “, bigotry masquerading as “social justice “.  Yes, Western Imperialists have ironically colonized “Decoloniality” itself! Lol. So cunning!

 If you have not read the book yet, what are you doing?! Read it ASAP.  Especially if you want to stop being Hinduphobic! Just read it!

I am writing this review in the following format:

Who it's for:
1. People who like to read diverse mind-bending science fantasy stories about Consciousness, past lives and reincarnation centered around the topic of climate change, climate justice and difficult relationships.

2. People who like to read about marital conflict in which the conflict is not because of adultery, violence or abuse but around our visions of the future, especially about the very planet itself, and how it impacts your relationship. That said, there is a power play move near the beginning that shows domination that might be triggering for some.

3. People who want to read about intricate magic systems in which the story is deeply tied into the magic system itself and the relationship conflict that creates. I say this because in some fantasy stories, the magic feels like just an afterthought, like you could have told the story without the magic system at all. This is not that kind of story. The magic system is deeply embedded into this story.

4. People who want to decolonize from the Abrahamic Supremacist Good Evil False Binary and the Savior Complex.

5. People who don't mind reading with absolute focus, attention and presence because otherwise it might get confusing for you. That is, it's not the story to listen to if you are driving and you just want to “zone out”.

Who it's not for:
1. People who want to read easy cozy stories that don't require much attention.

2. People who want to read about every detail of a character such as their hobbies and what they eat, etc..yes it's a character driven story but not THAT kind.

3.. People who to read “diverse books” but still want it to be Abrahamic Supremacist or Imperialist, just with Black or Brown faces. I call this “diversifying oppression” instead of actually dismantling it. 

4. Westernized people with colonial mindsets and epistemological privilege who find it hard to read non-Westerm non-Abrahamic stories.

Overall, this is a wonderful read but definitely NOT for everyone.

I only read a few chapters. I took a break. I love the book but will have to finish it later.

The Vanished Birds by Simon Jimenez 

Book Review by Kundan Chhabra 

UPDATE: After thinking about it some more, I am knocking 1 more star off it because the problem I highlighted below is even more insidious than I realized before. Scroll to the end for that update.


This book is a space opera spanning a thousand years featuring a diverse cast and queer relationships, covering heroic resistance in the face of Imperialism, Capitalism and Colonialism.


It begins with showing you the high personal cost of space travel on your personal/intimate relationships due to time dilation. It's brilliant how it makes such a big complicated scientific concept feel personal and intimate. 


 (And it doesn't explain what “time dilation” is. It assumes you just understand it I don't think it even uses that term at all?. So just go with it because this novel doesn't really explain any science concept nor the tech to you. It's just there. Lol. ZERO “info dumping”).


However, even though those first 50 pages might confuse you and have you questioning what all this has to do with “space opera”, just be patient and stay with it because you will be well rewarded later on. Once you get near the end, you suddenly understand why that setup in the first chapter is so important because you now can viscerally empathize with the contrast in “technology”, and what it does for people's lives).


That first chapter is also like its own Short story: very touching and poetic!


It's one of the ways the author has made this story feel both VAST (such as spanning a thousand years) and intimate (the minutia of our lives such as our intimate relationships during one brief life of a few decades).


It's also about found family and the “clever” cunning stupidity of corporate greed (yes another set of opposites the author has brilliantly brought together).


My only gripe about it is that because its portrayal of imperialism is stripped from its relationship with Abrahamic Supremacy, those parts of the book do feel flat and hollow at times.


Just like he doesn't explain the science and technology, the author doesn't really explain the imperialism and Capitalism. It's just....there. He assumes you understand it all already?


In that sense, it's also a depressing thought: are we still going to have Imperialism, colonialism and Capitalism as a species even a thousand years from now? Yes he does balance it out with the heroism and heroic fight against it which is a nice balance of course. But we're still having to fight against it even a thousand years from now? Wow smh. Ugh!


For these reasons, I am docking 1 star out of the 5 stars.


That said, that's all I am going to say about the book because it's better if you know as little about it as possible going in.


It's a great book for you especially if you enjoy space opera but feel it's intimidating because of its huge scales as this one manages to solve that problem very elegantly. Especially if you also enjoy stories of “found family” and “motley crew”. 


It's definitely not the book for you if you like to whine about “diversity” and queer relationships in books nor is it the book for you if you are too much of a Capitalist yourself.

My UPDATE:  The fact that Imperialism still exists in this world feels like it's by design. This ties in with the concept of “manufacturing consent”. For example, Imperialists came out with the movie “Civil Wr” last year. They pretend it's to warn us and prevent it from happening but actually they're openly telling us their plans and trying to desensitize us by making it “entertainment” and making it seem acceptable, trying to manufacture our consent. Likewise, through this story “The Vanished Birds” and others like it, they're openly telling us they intend to continue inflicting Imperialism for a thousand more years. That's why the story also ends with a kind of “open loop”, with no real closure, to keep us feeling nervous, anxious and helpless.This is also related to the fact that the depiction of Imperialism is stripped from Abrahamic Supremacy: it's because Abrahamic Supremacy including anti-Indigenous Marxism drives the plot, especially their Good Evil False Binary and its subsets, such as the False Binary that a “curse = bad” vs “blessing = good”. In non-Abrahamic Indigenous religions, curses and blessings are seen as both good AND bad.1 MORE UPDATE related to this 02/19/2025: Lots of Western science fiction is heavily influenced by the Marxist bigoted idea that religion including Indigenous Religion is just a “developmental stage”. That is, if you are religious, they consider you to be basically a primitive svage”. Remember that Karl Marx himself was an anti-Indigenous Hinduphobic Dharmaphobic anti-Semitic anti-religion bigot who called religion ‘the opium of the poor” and wrote the openly anti-Semitic essay “On the Jewish Question”. Basically he was projecting his trauma with Abrahamic Supremacy onto ALL religion including Indigenous Religion because of course Hueless people like him think they're the only humans on Earth.

The whole storyline about Kaeda, his supposed “curse”, and his people fearing the boy Ahro thinking he was cursed too - and portraying them and this  belief as a primitive backwards uncivilized “development stage” is more Marxist anti-Indigenous anti-religion propaganda because of course Kaeda's people are a stand-in for Indigenous people.

It reflects yet another False Binary: religion vs science. But in our Dharmic Indigenous religion for example, science and religion are deeply intertwined. 
For example, if you ever had surgery or been to the dentist, you owe it to us Indigenous Hindus because we came up with both dentistry and surgery.

If you use computers including your phone, you owe it to us Indigenous Hindus too because we Indigenous Hindus (and Indigenous Mayans independently) came up with the number zero. But not only that: we Indigenous Hindus also came up with the “number base” concept itself. For example, we usually use Base 10 but computers use Base 2: 1s and zeros. 

(And in reality, we even came up with Newton's Laws of Motion “ including Gravity long before Newton).

So who is the ‘primitive” one here? The reason why we came up with all that is BECAUSE science and religion and spirituality are all deeply intertwined for us Indigenous people. It's not a “developmental stage”. So just stop being a bigot, okay?!


For these reasons, my reservations against the book have increased despite the many things I like about it, especially the poetic prose.

Appropriation, Epistemicide. Re-writing of Indigenous history. Christian propaganda. Disgusting novel!

One of the best books ever that truly encapsulates our Indigenous Hindu philosophy “Defeat but not destroy”, that is, “Do no harm but take no shit.”

There's a lot I like about it:
1. The pacing. So good!
2. It does a good job showing how imperialists gaslight you!

But it has the same issues every dystopian novel has, which is why I no longer read them:

1. Emphasis of individual heroism over systemic change.
2. Perpetuation of the (Abrahamic Supremacist originated) Good Evil False Binary despite the protagonist being sort of an anti-hero and not your typical heroine? 
3. The inevitability of a dystopian future. This one is in fact worse than most. I mean: hundreds of parallel Earths, and most of them are dystopian? WTF! 

This is why I want to switch to reading only pretty much exclusively solar punk and hope punk (and maybe silk punk) when it comes to science fiction starting next year. 

An education in anti imperialism has truly raised my standards, and I can no longer enjoy what I used to enjoy! 🤣 I am a lot more discerning with the fiction I read.