Book Review | It’s The Stars, The Stars Above Us…
The prose of Starstruck is straightforward and unadorned by superfluous ornamentation, making it an understandable and engaging read for a younger target audience
In a time when smog and light pollution blanket our cityscapes, the stars seem further than ever before, distant as they were already. This distance, though, has been a perennial source of endless fascination, and it is into this fascination that Starstruck by Rachna Chhabria taps. The subjects of the book are the 27 Nakshatras, constellations that play the role of lunar mansions in Vedic astrology. More specifically, Chhabria dives into the stories that form the essences of the various Nakshatras, with a particular focus on the many myths surrounding the deities associated with each.
I will admit to less than a passing familiarity with knowledge of the Nakshatras myself. Fortunately for me, Chhabria doesn’t presuppose expertise in the area. The book itself is divided into 27 relatively brief chapters, all providing an overview of one of the Nakshatras, a chapter about the furtive 28th Nakshatra Abhijit, no longer considered part of the group, and an additional chapter telling the stories of several individual stars that carry their own unique significance.
Each of the 27 Nakshatra chapters, in turn, delves into, in rough order, the meaning and origins of the name of the Nakshatra, the stars that constitute it, the symbols associated with it and what they symbolise, the ruling planet (‘planet’ is somewhat of a misnomer here, for example, the ruling ‘planet’ of the fourth Nakshatra Rohini is the moon; rest easy those who, like me, were fretting about how they’d fit eight planets into 27 Nakshatras), the associated rishi, and then a collection of stories about the deity of the Nakshatra, ultimately ending with a brief section on the popular beliefs about the personalities of those born under the Nakshatra in question. It is the stories of deities that form the meat of a chapter.
The individual stories of the deities are a compilation of the characters’ greatest hits, and are commensurately exciting. Of course, some deities are less famous than others. Perhaps because there are simply fewer source stories about them, the more obscure deities receive relatively less time in the limelight. But where narratives might be missing, Chhabria is able to provide enough in the way of knowledge. Bhaga, for example, a Vedic deity functionally excised from the Hindu pantheon, can now find a second life of sorts nestled between the pages of Chhabria’s book.
The prose of Starstruck is straightforward and unadorned by superfluous ornamentation, making it an understandable and engaging read for a younger target audience. An older audience, too, has plenty to enjoy here. Chhabria skilfully wields humour and engages directly with the reader, making the stories in the book feel gripping. While the stories in each chapter revolve around that chapter’s particular deity, they also include characters from all over, with the effect that by the end of the book, the ensemble the reader has encountered comes to embody something like the familiarity of a neighbourhood.
Rudra Tripathi graduated in law from Oxford University and is a Delhi-based writer
Starstruck: Stories of the Nakshatras in the Sky
By Rachna Chhabria
Hachette India
pp. 216; Rs 499
