KOCHI: The Myths & Truths Behind The Ekkos Clan is a compilation of historical and linguistic facts and figures which loosely form the background of Sudipto Das’ debut novel, The Ekkos Clan.
Some of the interesting pieces of information which appear in Myths & Truths are as follows: The Dravidians may not be indigenous to India - they might have come from southern Iran. Durga, worshiped widely in Eastern India may be a derivative of a Central Asian mother Goddess older than the Rig Veda. The Bengali language is more Dravidian in structure than any other north Indian languages and the Bengali people may not be much different from the Tamils. The 190th hymn of the 1st book of the Rig Veda has some uncanny similarities with the Big Bang theory. The archaeological remains from Potapovka, near Samara on the Volga in Russia, dated 2200-2000 BC, provide a convincing antecedent for the Rig Vedic myth of Dadhyac Atharvan, whose head was replaced with the head of a horse.
In the book, Sudipto, has presented a series of discoveries and theories, espoused by a particular school of historians and linguists. He has used these discoveries throughout his book as the historical background needed for his novel. The Ekkos Clan is a mystery novel dealing with controversial aspects of ancient India which have left very little archaeological evidences. The Rig Veda, believed to be the oldest book of mankind, composed not later than 1500 BC, is perhaps the only surviving form of linguistic evidence of that age. Many things about that age can be reconstructed based on hypothesis derived from various evidences culled out from the Rig Veda. This process of reconstructing the past from linguistic evidence, often called linguistic palaeontology, is not unanimously accepted. This makes it a good background for a writer as neither what he writes can be proved nor disproved easily. The Ekkos Clan exploits many such areas to create a mystery thriller.