VMPL
Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], August 25: Qurate Books today announced the release of Raghav Kartikeya and the Tablets of Dharma, the first book in a new Indian mythology-fantasy series by debut author Rituraj Verma. The novel published on India's Independence Day and is now available in print across India and on Amazon in 15 countries, including the US, UK, Canada, Australia, Germany, and Japan.
A Modern Mumbai Boy, an Ancient Script, and a Hidden Himalayan Academy
Raghav Kartikeya and the Tablets of Dharma follows Raghav, a nine-year-old boy from Mumbai who has spent his life sickly, small for his age, and quietly out of place -- until he discovers he can read the symbols of the Indus Valley script, a writing system that has defied decipherment by scholars for over a century. That discovery pulls him out of his ordinary life in Colaba and into Shambhala, a secret Himalayan gurukul run by the descendants of ancient Rishis, where he begins to uncover a truth far larger than himself: that he carries the inheritance of an avatar of Vishnu.
Guided by a mysterious companion named Little Yama and grounded by his sharp, skeptical best friend Priya, Raghav is drawn into a world where archaeology and mythology intersect
-- where figures like Dharma, a one-horned cosmic being inspired by the single-horned animal motif found on more than a hundred real Indus Valley seals, are not fantasy inventions but imaginative extensions of genuine historical mystery. Structured around Joseph Campbell's hero's-journey framework, the book blends adventure, dream logic, and speculative history into a story built for young readers and adult mythology fans alike.
Standing against Raghav is Tarak, an ancient, fur-wrapped warlord who opens the novel by massacring a pilgrim convoy in the Himalayas to seize the tablets for himself. Bullets and grenades pass through Tarak and his followers without effect -- a being sustained across millennia by dark, ritual power, seemingly impossible to kill by conventional means. He makes no secret of his goal: the total annihilation of humankind. As the hunt for the tablets escalates from Kashmir to the caves of Balochistan, drawing in national intelligence chiefs and rival armies, Raghav must outrun and outwit a being who is, quite literally, indestructible evil incarnate.
Written with Gen Z and Gen Alpha readers in mind, the novel moves in short, cinematic bursts rather than long descriptive passages -- a fast-cut, reel-oriented style built for a generation raised on screens, designed to pull young readers through the story with the same momentum as the short-form video they already watch.
Why Verma Wrote the Book
Verma, who holds an engineering degree from India and an MBA from the United States, spent nearly a decade writing the novel, drawing on years of research connecting archaeology, mythology, and modern reasoning, as well as recurring, vivid dreams that shaped the book's dreamlike passages.
"India is now the world's most populous, and one of its youngest, nations, yet it has surprisingly few child heroes of its own," Verma said. "Many children grow up without inspiring role models their own age, and I believe that's one of the invisible reasons many Indian children grow up with lower self-esteem than they should. I wanted to ask: what if young readers believed their past was glorious? What might that do for their faith in their own future?"
His fascination with the Indus Valley Civilisation -- its baked-brick cities, multi-storey homes, and urban plumbing, evidence of a sophisticated ecosystem of architects, engineers, traders, priests, and thinkers -- became the seed for the book's world. "Historians often underestimate their intellectual brilliance, leaving gaps that revivalists and fantasy authors try to fill," he said. "This book fills that gap with imagination and adventure."
That absence of homegrown role models, Verma argues, has left a vacuum filled by foreign superheroes -- not just on screens, but on bookstore shelves, where imported franchises dominate children's and young-adult sections while Indian heroes are largely absent. Indian children grow up idolizing capes and cowls imported from other cultures, with few epic-scale heroes of their own to look up to, in print or otherwise. Raghav Kartikeya and the Tablets of Dharma was written as a direct answer to that gap -- an Indian hero, built on Indian mythology and history, given the same scale, stakes, and shelf space as any international franchise.
Verma is careful to note that the book is not a work of ideology. "This story belongs to everyone," he said. "I've tried not to take undue liberties with the essence of these characters, whether drawn from mythology or imagined anew."
About the Author
Rituraj Verma is a debut author with a professional background in corporate strategy. His years of work in strategy and knowledge systems directly shaped Shambhala, the novel's hidden academy of Rishi descendants. Raghav Kartikeya and the Tablets of Dharma is his
first novel and the opening book of a planned series.
Availability
Raghav Kartikeya and the Tablets of Dharma is published by Qurate Books and is available now:
In India: Print edition (ISBN U78-U3-58U84-55-2) at major bookstores including Sapna Book House, Gangarams, Higginbothams, and The Bookworm, across Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi NCR, Kolkata, Hyderabad, and North/Central India.
Internationally: Available on Amazon in 15 countries (ISBN U358U87448), including the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and across Europe and Asia.
Readers who don't find the book in stock are encouraged to ask booksellers to order it in.
Connect
Follow the series on Instagram at @raghav.kartikeya.series or on Facebook at Raghav Kartikeya Series for updates on the next book in the series.
Media Contact
For interviews, review copies, or more information, contact the publisher, Qurate Books Pvt. Ltd., at info@quratebooks.com.
(ADVERTORIAL DISCLAIMER: The above press release has been provided by VMPL. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of the same.)
