Ahalya's 'Awakening' in the Twenty- First Century (Book Chapter)

Creative Saplings

In the last two decades of the new millennium, as far as Indian Writing in English is concerned, the focus has shifted from the mainstream characters to the marginal figures of the Indian epics which is evinced by a renewed interest in Indian mythology through numerous retellings in the recent past. These retellings are unique in the sense that the focus is mainly on women and marginalized characters thereby offering fresh perspectives of interrogation and interpretation and also foregrounding new sensibilities in the process. Hence, in the recent times, more specifically from a women-centric perspective, appropriations and reworkings of the central women characters from two prominent Indian epics, that is, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, can be observed in the form of folk songs by rural women as well as by women writers attempting to dissect the traditional narratives from a feminist perspective. In the quest of understanding the experiences and values that shape the collective ...

Routledge, 2021

Purakala (UGC Care Journal) Vol-31-Issue-41-May -2020, 2020

This article focuses on the unspoken women of Indian mythologies. It considers a few novels written by Indian women writers as 'Revisionist fiction' that subvert the male voices and offer readers the re-imagined stories in female voices. Revisionism is one of the techniques adopted by feminist writers to rediscover the old texts. It is to create a sense of history for seeking public recognition to own and determine that history. It analyses how Kavitha Kane Kane reconstructs a gynocentric version of the mythological stories with a feminist viewpoint.

Jilin Daxue Xuebao (Gongxueban)/Journal of Jilin University (Engineering and Technology Edition), 2024

By foregrounding Panchaali's voice, Divakaruni invites readers to reconsider the roles and agency of women not only in ancient mythology but also in contemporary society. Through an analysis of bliss and sadness, struggles and triumphs, heartbreaks and achievements, strengths and faults, the paper aims to uncover the depth and complexity of Panchaali or Draupadi's character, "It is her life, her voice, her questions and her vision that I invite you into The Palace of Illusions" (Divakaruni 15). Divakaruni's work unveils the narrative threads that have remained invisible within the male-dominated retellings of historical and mythological tales. By centring the experiences of women, she sheds light on overlooked aspects of these stories, offering fresh perspectives and insights that resonate with contemporary audiences.

2021

Integrated Journal for Research in Arts and Humanities, 2022

Ramayana and Mahabharata have seen many adaptations down the centuries. Recent ones like Volga's The Liberation of Sita or Amish Tripathi's Sita: Warrior of Mithila take up the woman question and reinterpret the story from a feminist perspective. This paper attempts to discuss the above nuances with reference to feminist critics like Wollstonecraft and Butler while also referring to other reinterpretations of the epic. I will discuss the short stories of Volga through a feminist lens and focus on the questioning of the caste system in Tripathi. Not only will I use Western texts but also refer to Indian texts like the Manusmriti to give a theoretical grounding to some of the basic understandings obtained. I will base some of my opinions on the popular reception of Ramayana across the country as documented by Madhu Kishwar. Other texts by Kavita Kane or Nabaneeta Dev Sen will also be take up to get a better understanding of the woman writing about another woman. It will come up through these discussions that the love for Ramayana is not only based on an unequivocal worshiping of Ram, but an equal questioning of his acts and a sympathetic identification with Sita.

2008

Along with the heroines of strīdharma (women’s law), Indian Epics present a number of controversial, many-sided figures pointing back to female counter-archetypes. In spite of their unconventionality, these characters maintain an incisive influence over the collective imagination of both ancient and modern India. Moreover, they play a prime role in the debate between Tradition and innovation that goes on, as heated as ever, among the scholars as well as the public, in the West and in India. These anti-heroines (who are not only antithetical to the canonical champions of virtue of the Epics, but also fail to fit in the established nāyikā categories of Kāvya, art literature), are now finding a new lease of life in contemporary Indian literature. This is the case, for example, in works like Yajnaseni: The Story of Draupadi, of Pratibha Ray, and Kaikeyi of Amreeta Syam – not to mention many Bollywood productions. These “unique females” – to whom we must add women from different spheres of existence, like the demoness Śūrpaṇakhā – testify to the existence of voices who already in the Mahābhārata and in the Rāmāyaṇa, did not ‘join the chorus’. And it may well be for that very reason that also they are points of reference, albeit controversial, for the Indian civilization.

This paper looks at feminist retellings of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, tracing the scope and importance of retellings, acceptance of feminist retellings along with a look at examples from the works of Chitra Banerjee Divakurni, Sara Joseph and Mahashweta Devi. The central argument that this paper makes is that epics are not fixed texts and are subjectively interpreted which gives feminists the space to challenge and retell them, and such retelling, when it looks at women's lives-their place in gender relations, their status in family and society and the intersectionality of their marginalities-makes a great contribution to literature and history.

Purpose: Man, in contrast to other creatures, is concerned with spiritual issues such as cognitive, social, artistic, and political concerns. A deep relationship has existed between faith and humanity since the dawn of time, if not before. The various religious and cultural beliefs are reflected in myths. As a result, the history of civilizations is primarily linked to and identified with mythology and religion. With the guidance of mythology and culture, people can better understand their world and the meaning of life. Thousands of years had passed since the epic narratives were penned. However, the astonishing stories continue to uncover conspicuousness in every genre of art and continue to engulf and overwhelm us even today. Epic narratives are still loved not only for their poetic grandeur but also for the highest philosophical principles they contain, which educate us about the art of living. As a result, the Mahabharata is one of the most important writings in Indian culture, and its stories, which practically everyone has grown up hearing, are still relevant today. It is a true embodiment of a useful scripture that offers the modern man with a traditional, moral, and liturgical grounding even in the contemporary society. It is not just a story of morality to be narrated from the generations, but an unending source of study. Plenty of critics have studied the text from many perspectives, still much remains to be discovered and researched. The study intends to read four new retellings of the Mahabharata novels and look afresh into the four powerful female characters, namely, Sathyavati, Gandhari, Kunti, and Draupadi. The study discovers the quest for self-crisis of the four prominent female characters by applying feministic study, power politics, and gender views. The study mainly focuses on the comparison and contrast between the concept of western and Indian feminism. Methodology/Approach: The Literature Review is carried out by the information collected from different sources like educational websites, peer-reviewed journals, and online sources. The proposed research will be carried out relying on the data collected through research journals, doctoral thesis, scholarly articles, and websites. This qualitative approach is conducted mainly based on collecting, examining, and interpreting existing knowledge on the selected topic by focusing on the keywords "Feminism, Prominence, Relevance, Retelling, Self-Crisis, and Western". The methodology of the study is the textual analysis and comparative method. Findings/Result: Vast reading of mythology will enhance the further areas of study. The gap between western feminism and Indian feminism helps to identify the discrimination of women in a clear way. The detailed study of the construction of gender views over the years makes it insightful about the issue. Discover that there is a connection between feminist studies with other theoretical frameworks. Modern retellings of the epic novels widen the scope and understanding of the original work. The scope and relevance of feminism in India are become more clear by comparing and contrasting the Indian and western concepts of feminism.

Akshara, No. 11-12, 2019

Mahasweta Devi can be easily called the conscience keeper of her times as her storytelling involves lending voice to the subaltern. Folk traditions in Bengal have existed since time immemorial and Mahasweta incorporates the folk traditions into her writing seamlessly as she crafts stories about the poor and the dispossessed. She is an ardent believer in justice and equality for all and her writing documents the state's treatment of its own people-be it the injustice meted out to the Adivasi communities or to the young Naxals of the 1970s, she has raised her voice in protest against all forms of state sponsored oppression. Her humanity includes everyone who is downtrodden-the women in the brick kilns of Bihar and Bengal, the agriculturists of Singur and Nandigram and the adivasis. A tireless activist, Mahasweta continues to protest against all forms of domination. In this paper, I wish to explore how Mahasweta uses a retelling of the Mahabharata to emphasize the atrocities committed on the poor janavritta by the powerful rajavritta in a powerful story titled "Panchakanya" translated as "The Five Women" in a volume of three stories translated by Anjum Katyal titled After Kurukshetra.