MAHAGAURI

Gauri Vishwanath is a brilliant senior scientist at a top defence lab in Bengaluru. For some time she has been haunted by a recurring dream in which she becomes a fierce warrior, armed and fighting on a bloody battlefield. Then a freak accident in the lab turns the dream into something real and throws her into the ancient kingdom of Saptapuri.

The kingdom is under siege. Moishan, the buffalo-demon, is leading his huge army of demons toward the city to seize the Ajna Chakra, a purple jewel forged from the fire of Shiva's Third Eye. Legend says whoever holds it gains immortality and power.

Saptapuri's last hope is an old prophecy that one of Goddess Durga's avatars will come from another world to defeat Moishan. To Gauri's astonishment, the prophecy points to her. Caught between disbelief and destiny, she has to accept a sudden transformation into Mahagauri, the warrior form of Durga.

As Saptapuri burns, Gauri must decide whether to cling to the modern world she knows or to unleash the divine power in her and change the fate of a seven-hundred-year-old kingdom. Her path from woman of science to warrior goddess forces her to face her own courage. Nitya Neelakantan builds a mythological epic around a heroine who is vulnerable and formidable in equal measure, set in the age-old struggle between light and darkness.