Asura: The Tale of Vanquished

I am reading this book Asura: The Tale of Vanquished by Anand Neelakantan. It depicts Ramayana, the great epic of India, in perception of Ravana, the villain in the original version of Ramayana. 

The Hero of Ramayana, Rama, is known as ideal of all the men, the perfect human in all the sense, person who have control over Shadripu. The Ravana in the other hand portrayed as a common man who is prone to being evil. Having the skills and qualities of great human, his actions make him the villain. But Anand never seems biased about Ravana, he never tries to make him a hero. He tries to capture both good and bad things about Ravana, tries to show you both sides of coin. Against the traditional norms of making Ravana all bad. As the Winston Churchill quotes History is written by the victors. 

The book narrate self-thoughts of Ravana and, a commoner and a soldier of Ravana, Bhadra. Ravana, born as a poor guy, aspires to be the King and savior of Asura race (here Asura is not synonym to evil, but human race that is portrayed as devil) from Deva (not synonym to Gods but human race). The Bhadra who is a villager, victim of Deva attacks, loses his family and joins the Ravana in his aspiration to repossess the Kingdoms which are took over by Devas. Often Ravana thinks that whatever he is doing is wrong still he doesn't take any efforts to correct himself, and chooses easy way to deal with things. Which makes me think, there is Ravana( the evil) in each of us. Sometimes, we know what we are doing is wrong, still we go for that thing. Reminds of me quote of my favorite character, Dexter

Every twist, every turn can challenge our sense of direction. But it's the choices we make when we reach a fork in the road that defines who we are.

Don't we do things that we think are wrong, things which we ourself don't wanna do, just to keep our ego and our pride? There does not exist a person that is all good or all bad, all lie in between these. There exist people who wants to be good and others who simply don't care. People who be nice with people, care for them, that's what makes them good. People decides at points whether they wants to be devil or good. It's hard to control the Shadripus, thus people find easy way to deal with the things. It solves the problem or keeps you happy temporarily but most of the times affect you in the future (and that too very badly). It does not matter whether thing is small or big, it's just a choice. This quote summarises it all

Until you sell your soul to the devil; he will keep trying.