Post on 14-May-2023
(RE)EXAMINING MARGINALIZED CHARACTERS: CASTE AND GENDER IN
SELECT RETELLINGS OF THE MAHABHARATA IN RECENT INDIAN ENGLISH
FICTION
M.A.
1
May 2015
Tanvi Mohile
(RE)EXAMINING MARGINALIZED CHARACTERS: CASTE AND GENDER IN
SELECT RETELLINGS OF THE MAHABHARATA IN RECENT INDIAN ENGLISH
FICTION
A Dissertation for the Partial Fulfilment of Master of Arts to
S.N.D.T Women’s University,
Churchgate,
Mumbai-400 020
By
Tanvi Mohile
2
Guide
Dr. Dhrupadi Chattopadhyay
INTRODUCTION
“Great as the Ramayana is as an epic poem, and loved by the
people, it is really the Mahabharata that is one of the
outstanding books of the world. It is a colossal work, an
encyclopaedia of tradition and legend, and political and
social institutions of ancient India.”
-Jawaharlal Nehru (qtd. In Lothspeich: 5)
The Ramayana and the Mahabharata are two Indian epics which are
very important to the social, cultural and political scene in
India. They were, and continue to be, an important part of
people’s consciousness and the Indian social construct.
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This research focuses on retellings of the Mahabharata and
issues of caste and gender that have been represented in the
retellings through characters from the Mahabharata. In order to
do this, the research uses contemporary caste and gender
theories to understand what, and how, changes have occurred
with respect to these two issues. Caste and gender issues are
ever-present in Indian society and Indian literature reflects
these issues in their changing forms. It is interesting to
study how authors in the 21st century retell an epic like the
Mahabharata to showcase these changes in society.
At the same time, the Mahabharata is considered to be Indian
mythology and therefore, it is necessary to associate myth
theories with it. This research especially tries to make use
of myth theories by Mircea Eliade and Bronislaw Malinowski who
talk about the effect of myth on society.
The Epic Form and the Mahabharata:
In A Glossary of Literary Terms, M.H. Abrams and Geoffrey Galt Harpham
write-“...the term epic or heroic poem is applied to a work
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that meets at least the following criteria: it is a long verse
narrative on a serious subject, told in a formal and elevated
style, and centred on a heroic or quasi-divine figure on whose
actions depends the fate of a tribe, a nation or...the human
race.” They also distinguish between traditional and literary
epics, where traditional epics “were written versions of what
had originally been oral poems..” Examples of traditional
epics include Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, the Anglo-Saxon Beowulf,
the Spanish Poema del Cid etc. On the other hand, literary epics
“were composed by individual poetic craftsmen in deliberate
imitation of the traditional form.” Examples of literary epics
include Virgil’s Aeneid, Milton’s Paradise Lost etc (107).
According to the above definition of epics it can be said that
the Mahabharata is a traditional epic. But the notion of an
Indian epic is different than a western one. In India the
Sanskrit epics are called kavyas or mahakavyas. Indira
Viswanathan Peterson defines kavya as “literature conceived
above all as a form of art in the medium of figurative
language. Its purpose is to achieve aesthetic effects through
the exquisite manipulation of language and of the conventions
of form” and she calls the mahakavya as “the most prestigious
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of the kavya genres.” (1) M. Srinivasachariar defines a
mahakavya as “a writing of considerable length varying
description and elaborate construction, embracing a narrative,
theological or historical and is divided into Sargas or cantos
for convenience of narration” (81). The Mahabharata is one of
two Sanskrit epics of ancient India, the other being the
Ramayana. Irawati Karve, in Yuganta, distinguishes between the
two epics by calling the Mahabharata a history and the Ramayana
a poem (79). Bibek Debroy, in his Introduction to his
translation of the unabridged Mahabharata, says that both the
epics are included in the smriti tradition, which means that
they “were recited, heard, memorized and passed down through
the generations.” The Mahabharata is said to have been written
by Sage Vyasa, but there is also an alternate view that Vyasa
or Vedavyasa was a title conferred on a person who classified
the Vedas. According to Debroy, therefore, the composer of the
Mahabharata is Krishna Dvaipayana Vedavyasa. He also says
further that subsequent generations have added to the epic and
therefore it is difficult to say if the epic as we know it
today was the one composed by Krishna Dvaipayana. (xviii) The
epic poem is made up of 100,000 couplets-divided into 18
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parvans or, alternatively, 100 parvans. It is difficult to
determine when the Mahabharata was composed because of the
belief that it had multiple authors. According to Debroy, it
was composed over a period of 1000 years between 800 BCE and
400 ACE. (xxi) It is one of the largest known epics and is 7
times the size of the Iliad and the Odyssey combined. It is
considered to be an important text in Hinduism because of its
teachings of dharma and also because it is considered to be
itihasa (history) by some. Debroy writes,”...itihasa is better
translated as ‘this is what happened’. Itihasa isn’t myth or
fiction. It is a chronicle of what happened; it is fact. Or so
runs the belief.” (xvii) Also, the Bhagavad Gita, a part of the
Mahabharata, is a discourse between Krishna and Arjuna about
moral code and ethics, and the path to final liberation for
man. Therefore, it also has a religious significance in
Hinduism (britannica.com).
The Mahabharata, therefore, is culturally and socially
important in India. Ramanujan in his essay titled ‘Repetitions
in the Mahabharata’, writes “..a text like the Mahabharata is
not a text but a tradition” (420). Amish Tripathi, one of the
leading writers of mythological fiction in India, also said in
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a discussion in a YouTube video of the Odisha Litfest 2012
that Indian mythology is still just as popular and readable
because it forms such an important part of our culture and
society (youtube.com).
Even though it is true that the Mahabharata and the Ramayana
are both important in Indian society, it is the Mahabharata
which is associated more with the workings of society and the
behaviour of humans than the Ramayana. This is because of the
stories that the two epics tell. The Ramayana is the story of
Lord Rama who is a divine figure in Hinduism. On the other
hand, most of the characters in the Mahabharata are more human
than divine. Debroy writes, “every conceivable human emotion
figures in it, which is the reason why it is possible to
identify with it even today. The text itself states that what
is not found in the Mahabharata, will not be found anywhere
else.” (xxxi) Pamela Lothspeich, in her book Epic Nation, says
that the Mahabharata is “revered national literature and
national history”. Its reputation is that of “an authoritative
text about India’s past”. According to Lothspeich the reason
for this is that “the Pandavas have not been apotheosized as
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Ram and Krishna have been, and for this reason they are more
easily appropriated as ‘real’ historical figures.” (3)
Inspite of it being called “national history” the epic is
often studied as Indian mythology rather than history. In ‘At
the Foot of Mount Olympus: A Theory on Myth’, Flip Schutte
defines mythology as “the body of myths of a particular
culture” and “the study and interpretation of such myths.” He
defines myth as “a narrative that through many retellings has
become an accepted tradition in a society.” (577)
While considering the books and other material available on
the Mahabharata it is necessary to keep in mind that many
authors and scholars consider it to be a myth. But there has
been much debate on this issue and Indian scholars maintain
that it is a part of India’s history and is about people and
cultures which lived in India. Yellapragada Sudershan Rao, the
author of the Mahabharata Project and the Chairman of The Indian
Council of Historical Research (ICHR), said in a recent
interview in the online Outlook magazine, that “For the last
60 years, our writing and understanding of history has been
influenced by the West... And, these are my personal views,
history writing in India is Euro-centric and
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imperialistic....There is a certain view that the Mahabharata
or the Ramayana are myths. I don’t see them as myths because
they were written at a certain point of time in history....
the Ramayana is true for people...it’s in the collective
memory of generations of Indians. We can’t say the Ramayana or
the Mahabharata are myths. Myths are from a western
perspective..... In continuing civilisations such as ours,
the writing of history cannot depend only on archaeological
evidence. We have to depend on folklore too.”
(outlookindia.com)
Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik, another well-known Indian writer says,
in an article titled ‘History versus Mythology’ published on
his website, that “the pre-scientific European accepted
whatever the priests preached on the pulpit. The post-
scientific European demanded evidence for everything. Both the
pre-scientific and the post-scientific European rejected
sacred stories of other parts of the world (America, Africa,
Asia, Australia) as myth for all together different reasons.
The former for religious reasons: truth only comes from the
Bible. The latter for scientific reasons: lack of measurable
evidence.” (devdutt.com) Therefore, the change in perception
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of the epics, from history to mythology is very recent. It is
only with the colonisation of India that the epics came to be
viewed as mythology rather than a lived history.
Critical Reception:
J.L. Brockington in The Sanskrit Epics writes about the critical
reception to the Mahabharata in the West, in the early 19th and
20th centuries. The first English translation of any part of
the Mahabharata was by Charles Wilkins, in 1785. It was the
first time that any Sanskrit text was being translated into a
European language. Franz Bopp edited different incidents in
the epic and also edited the first complete edition of the
Mahabharata, called the Calcutta edition, between 1834 and 1839.
The next to come was the Bombay edition in 1862-63 with
Nilakantha’s commentary.
Christian Lassen undertook a systematic research of the epic
because he wanted to “reconstruct Indian geography, ethnology
and the pre-Buddhist history of India on the basis of the epic
material.” (Brockington, 43) Other important scholars of the
epic include the two Adolf Holtzmanns, an uncle and a nephew.
The younger Adolf Holtzmann gave the ‘inversion theory’ which
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said that it was originally Duryodhana’s side which was the
victorious side but later Vishnu followers changed the text to
show the triumph of Krishna and the Pandavas.
The first half of the twentieth century saw a decline in the
interest in epics. Hermann Oldenberg studied the structure of
the epic and said that the epic was a mixture of prose and
verse but was later reworked into a regular verse structure.
On the other hand, Gerrit Jan Held studied the epic using an
ethnographic perspective and was of the opinion that the
Kauravas and the Pandavas represented two tribes and the dice
game was a usual feature for the maintenance and regulation of
wealth amongst the tribes. Charles Autran also used
ethnographic perspectives to study the epic but he also used
the comparative approach, comparing the epic with the Greek
world.
In India, the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute started
an ambitious project of compiling a critical edition of the
Mahabharata in 1919. The critical edition was compiled using
various manuscripts from all over India and critical
commentaries available on the epic. V.S. Sukhtankar was the
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editor of the massive project. The Institute published 19
volumes between 1927 and 1966.
Irawati Karve’s Yuganta is a very important critical work. She
writes about the different characters in the epic and
interprets their behaviour, actions and their effects on the
course of the epic.
Versions and Retellings:
The Online Oxford Dictionary defines ‘version’ as
“A particular form of something differing in
certain respects from an earlier form or other forms of the
same type of thing” and it defines ‘retelling’ as
“Tell (a story) again or differently”. The definitions are
similar and it is, therefore, difficult to determine the
difference between them.
A.K. Ramanujan, in his essay ‘ Three Hundred Ramayanas’, says
though that he “ prefer(s) the word telling to the usual terms
versions or variants because the latter terms can and typically do
imply that there is an invariant, an original or Ur-text”13
(25). This is the main difference, then, between retellings
and versions. There are different versions of the Mahabharata
all over India. In an article titled ‘Epic Fictions’, in The
Caravan, Jai Arjun Singh writes, “as you travel from one region
to another, plot specifics vary, as do people’s perceptions of
different characters. Duryodhana might be the villain-in-chief
in any conventional version of the Mahabharata, but there are
temples in Kerala and Uttaranchal where he is worshipped as a
just ruler. And not all Mahabharata traditions subscribe to a
misty-eyed view of the Pandavas as heroes. Tribal communities
who revere Ekalavya as a folk-hero—cruelly denied the status
of the world’s greatest archer—are likely to think of Arjuna
and Drona as privileged schemers.” (caravanmagazine.in) In
Yuganta, Irawati Karve writes that there were different versions
of the Mahabharata available in the print form all over India-in
Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Maharashtra.
The oldest manuscript was found in Kashmir, written in 10th
century AD on birch bark. There is also a Javanese version of
the epic. (4) One version, though, could have many retellings.
In fact, the epic itself is being retold by different people
because “we have the first narrator Ugrashrava who tells the
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story upto a point, and then tells it as told by the second
narrator Vaishampayana who in his turn is the chief narrator
upto a point and then tells it as told by the third narrator
Sanjaya..” (Karve 6)
One of the earliest known Sanskrit retellings of the
Mahabharata was Kiratarjuniya of Bharavi written in the 6th century
AD. There have been retellings in many Indian languages like
Marathi, Bengali, Hindi, Assamese, Kashmiri, Gujarati,
Konkani, Tamil etc. (Pai 56). Authors use prevalent versions
to make the story relevant to contemporary times.
The epic has also been retold over the years in literature.
There have been various books written. Amar Chitra Katha
published a comic book version of the epic, there have been
countless novels written from the perspective of different
characters. Some examples include Pratibha Ray’s Yajnaseni in
Oriya, Shivaji Sawant’s Mrityunjay in Marathi, M.T. Vasudevan
Nair’s Randamoozam and P.K. Ramakrishnan’s And Now Let Me Sleep in
Malayalam, S.L. Byrappa’s Parva in Kannada, Gajendra Kumar
Mitra’s Panchajanya in Bengali, V. S Khandekar’s Yayati in
Marathi, Shashi Tharoor’s The Great Indian Novel in English etc. In
the 21st century too authors continue to write novels based on
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the Mahabharata, like Devdutt Pattanaik’s Jaya, Chitra Banerjee
Diwakaruni’s Palace of Illusions, Ashwin Sanghi’s The Krishna Key,
Kavita Kane’s Karna’s Wife: The Outcaste’s Queen, Anand Neelakantan’s
Ajaya, Anuja Chandramouli’s Arjuna etc.
Interestingly, an epic as large as the Mahabharata was also
retold on twitter. Chindu Shreedharan, a senior lecturer at
Bournemouth University retold the story of the Mahabharata from
the perspective of Bhima in 2009. He retold it in 2,700 tweets
over 1065 days. His tweets have now been published as Epic
Retold. (hindustantimes.com)
Derived Works:
There have also been many works derived from the epic. Some of
the most well-known works include Bhasa’s Urubhanga (Broken
Thigh) which is based on the fight between Duryodhana and
Bhima. Another of his works is Madhyamavyayoga (The Middle One)
which is about Bhima and Ghatotkach, his son. These were
written in Sanskrit around the 2nd or 3rd century. Dharamvir
Bharati’s Andha Yug (The Blind Epoch) was an important play of
the 20th century. Another well-known play of the same century
is Girish Karnad’s Yayati. There are also many films based on
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the epic. Peter Brook’s 1985 play on the Mahabharata was 9
hours long. It was later made into a film of the same name.
There have also been reinterpretations of the epic on film
like Shyam Benegal’s Kalyug and Prakash Jha’s Raajneeti. B.R.
Chopra’s T.V. series, Mahabharata, was very popular in the
late 1980s. An animated film titled Mahabharata was also
released in 2013. These derived works are also, in a way,
retellings of the epic because playwrights, film makers,
directors choose to focus on certain incidents or characters
and retell the epic from different angles and perspectives.
It is this continuing interest in the epics that has led to
this research and it attempts to understand the place that the
epic holds in 21st century India. Retellings of the epic are
what have kept the epic alive after centuries of its
conception.
Selected Retellings:
The primary sources for this research are Kavita Kane’s Karna’s
Wife: The Outcast’s Queen and Anand Neelakantan’s Ajaya: Roll of the Dice.
Karna’s Wife tells the story of Karna in the Mahabharata, but it
focuses more on Karna’s life as a family man than as a warrior
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or hero. Kane has created the fictional character of Uruvi and
she tells Karna’s story through this character. When asked
about the motivation behind the writing of the novel she says,
“Karna, though, one of the most popular, the most loved, and
the most revered and the most sympathised characters in Indian
mythology, has always been seen as a two-dimensional figure –
either as Arjun’s rival or as Duryodhan’s friend. I was more
interested in him as an individual, a husband, a son, a
brother, a lover not just as the doomed and the damned
warrior.” (sliceofreallife.com)
The fact that she created Uruvi, Karna’s wife, also goes to
say that authors have felt the need, and still do, to write
mythology in a contemporary way. About Uruvi she says, in the
same interview, “Uruvi is his wife, a fictitious character I
created so that I had more liberty with her and could mould
her without any social restrictions or moral limitations.”
Neelakantan’s Ajaya: Roll of the Dice is another novel which tells
the story of the Mahabharata but from the perspective of
Suyodhana, or Duryodhana as he is popularly known. The novel
is the first part in two, the second part being The Book of Kali,
which hasn’t been published yet. Ajaya tells the story of the
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epic till the dice game. It attempts to subvert the accepted
notions of good and evil in the epic. Neelakantan provides a
voice to characters like Eklavya and Vidura who do not usually
speak out because they form a small part of the epic’s vast
expanse. He writes through the perspective of various
characters and tries to provide a different view of the epic.
In an interview he says about the change in perspective,
“History shows that the side that gets vanquished always gets
painted in black. What I did was to shine the light from a
different angle so that the shadows and lights interchanged or
got mixed to shades of grey.” (booksoarus.com)
Authors have been retelling the epic from different
perspectives for many years and it is these retellings that
have provided layers to the epic and its characters. These
retellings have changed and transformed the text and continue
to do so. Lakshmi Bandlamundi writes, “Individuals select
certain aspects of their lives and the world around them to
write their life stories and likewise they select certain
aspects of the epics to rewrite the story.” (5) She also
writes about how the text is transformed because of the
interaction of the readers with the text because even though
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“the author intends to convey certain messages, the readers,
depending on their history and social location, bring varied
meanings to the text” (8). Therefore, retellings are
constantly changing the epics and making them contemporary to
the times that they are written in.
Literature Review:
There have been many studies on the Mahabharata, both, by
Western and Indian scholars. One of the important works by
western scholars is The Sanskrit Epics by J. Brockington, which
discusses both the Indian epics, their forms, content, themes
and their impact on society and culture. Another scholar of
Indian mythology is Sheldon Pollock who writes about the epics
in Literary Cultures in History: Reconstructions from South Asia. Alf
Hiltebeitel, an American professor, is also a well-known
scholar of Indian mythology and the Mahabharata. Some of his
works include Rethinking the Mahabharata: A Reader’s Guide to the Education
of the Dharma King and a collection of his writings titled Reading
the Fifth Veda: Studies on the Mahabharata.
In India too there has been a lot of work done on the
Mahabharata. The Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute in Pune
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has published a critical edition of the epic in eighteen
volumes. V.S. Sukhtankar is one of the editors of the critical
edition and is also the author of On the Meaning of the Mahabharata.
Another eminent scholar on Indian history and mythology is
Romila Thapar. Her book, The Past Before Us, analyses history and
mythology and their association with the present. A.K.
Ramanujan has also written on both the epics. His essay titled
‘Repetition in the Mahabharata’ is considered to be important.
Essays on the Mahabharata, edited by Arvind Sharma, is also an
important book and has critical essays by various western and
Indian scholars.
This research too attempts to study the Mahabharata and
especially the issue of caste and gender marginalization in
recent retellings of the epic. There has been some work done
on caste and gender in the original epic. In Gender and Narrative in
the Mahabharata editors Simon Broadbeck and Brian Black provide
essays by different authors on issues of gender, roles of
women, transsexuality, marriage etc. in the epic. The Dialogics of
Self, The Mahabharata and Culture by Lakshmi Bandlamudi explains the
various ways in which the epic is related to culture. But
since these focus on the original epic, the changes that have
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been observed in the retellings have not been thoroughly
studied.
Much work has been done on novels of the twentieth century
like Pratibha Ray’s Yajnaseni, Shivaji Sawant’s Mrityunjay, M.T.
Vasudevan Nair’s Randamoozam, V. S Khandekar’s Yayati, Shashi
Tharoor’s The Great Indian Novel etc. In ‘A passage Through the
Mahabharata Re-tellings: Study of some Contemporary Novels’
published as a PhD. Thesis by Leena Pai, she discusses six
novels, five have been mentioned above and P.K. Balkrishnan’s
And Now Let Me Sleep. She focuses on the depiction of the
characters and on studying the reasons behind selection of
characters for perspective retellings. She also writes about
how authors have deviated from the original epic and what
these deviations mean. In ‘The Mahabharata and the Marathi
Novel: Textual Strategies’, published in Indian Literature,
Harishchandra Thorat writes about the narrative of the epic
and textual strategies used by authors, for example, the
choice of narrator and the description techniques used. He
also writes about how the Mahabharata is used in Marathi
novels- metaphorically, by “re-narrating” it and by making it
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more “literary” with “decorative style, attractive
descriptions and dramatic episodes” (135).
Shashi Tharoor’s The Great Indian Novel has been a subject of
discussion in many articles and research papers. In her
thesis, Pai calls it a “political satire” and talks about the
narrative by saying that “the epic narrative is completely
violated, the sequences of events changed and incidents
modified to suit the modern political scenario” (109). ‘In
Colonial Historiography Vs Postcolonial Historiography:
History, Myth and Allegory in Shashi Tharoor’s The Great Indian
Novel’ by Ram Bhawan Yadav, published in Lapis Lazuli –An International
Literary Journal (LLILJ), he discusses the use of metaphors in the
narrative by Tharoor and also how the author has represented
history and politics through his novel.
Therefore, most of the research surveyed in the literature
review focuses on characterization and the narrative style
employed by the authors. There is still some scope to study
marginalized characters, especially from the perspective of
caste and gender marginalization. The reason for choosing the
study of marginalized characters is that many authors today
give voice to characters considered to be marginalized.
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In ‘The Marginalized Groups in Indian Social Construct: A
Critical Study of Mahesh Dattani’ by Sanjiv Kumar and Dr.
Prakash Bhadury, published in the American Journal of Research in
Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, the writers say that “
marginalization refers to individual or groups who live at the
margin of society” (109). Authors write from a perspective
that is different from or opposite to the popular perspective.
Characters like Karna, Vidura, Eklavya, Duryodhana, Draupadi,
Bhanumati are getting a voice through recent retellings. There
have been papers written on marginalized characters in the
Mahabharata like ‘Going Beyond the Marginalized: A Study with a
Specific Reference to Indian Women in the Epic Context’ by Dr.
Rajani Jairam, which discusses the marginalization of women
and representation of the same in epics. But there hasn’t been
much research on the issues of marginalized characters in
retellings of the epic and that is what this research intends
to focus on.
Methodology:
This research attempts to study if, and how, margins of caste
and gender have changed over the years and how authors of
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mythological fiction portray these changes in retellings of
the epics.
The Mahabharata has been studied and debated on as the critical
reception and literature review sections show. But, it is also
true that its origins, with respect to author/authors and the
year in which it was written, are debatable. Therefore, it is
difficult to refer to an ‘original’ text. What we have at our
disposal are translations, versions, reinterpretations and
retellings of a supposed ‘original’.
While considering the notion of retelling it is important to
consider postmodernism because retelling or rewriting is a
postmodern technique used in literature and other forms of
art. Postmodernism employs parody, pastiche, intertextuality
as a way of retelling already known stories. Retelling and
rewriting are sometimes taken to be synonymous but may also be
distinguished. Christian Moraru, in his book Rewriting: Postmodern
Narrative and Cultural Critique in the Age of Cloning, insists that “rewriting
and retelling are not synonyms”. (17) In the Routledge Encyclopedia
of Narrative Theory, retelling is also called “renarrativisation”.
Here, retelling and rewriting are also used synonymously.
Retelling is differentiated from imitation or replication and
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“numerous-if not all- postmodern rewrites erode this ‘model’
[the original text] and its underpinning ideologies while
critiquing the very social context within which the dialogue
of the rewrite and the rewritten occurs...the rewrite reworks
not only a text from the past-a form- but also cultural
formations, i.e, the values underlying that text.” (460) While
considering retellings of mythological stories it is necessary
to understand that these stories already have “residual
meanings and ideologies” associated with them. Therefore, “any
retellings bring with it a predetermined horizon of
expectation, which in turn means that its values and ideas
about the world are always already legitimate.” (180)
The retellings chosen are in the novel form and therefore it
is necessary to also consider the transition that occurs from
the epic to the novel. Mikhail Bakhtin, in his essay ‘Epic and
Novel’, writes that the epic is a genre which is now
“completed”. On the other hand, the novel is a genre which is
“developing”. Bakhtin writes that in the process of becoming
the more established and dominant genre, the novel is
renovating the earlier genres. The novel is a genre which is
much more “free and flexible” and it represents contemporary
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reality using a different language. Also, he writes that
“reality as we have it in the novel is only one of many
possible realities; it is not inevitable, not arbitrary, it
bears within itself other possibilities.” Therefore, the novel
genre incorporates the epic within itself, thus altering it,
making it more contemporary and evolving it.
As genres have evolved, so have the issues discussed and
represented in them. Notions of caste and gender have changed
over the years, as Dipankar Gupta demonstrates in Interrogating
Caste where he writes about how the Brahmanical model of the
caste system has evolved over time. Gupta talks about how
there are hierarchies of caste and within castes too. It is
these hierarchies that make the social structure in India.
Gupta explains the hierarchies by referring to Louis Dumont’s
Homo Hierarchicus. The theory of caste hierarchy will be used to
understand what kind of a social structure existed and if and
how this social structure has changed over the years. In his
book, Gupta explains that it is not very easy to study the
caste system, especially with reference to India, because
there are various levels that have to be considered. In the
chapter titled ‘Caste, Infrastructure and Superstructure’,
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Gupta gives a brief history of the caste system and how it
came to be. According to this history, the hierarchy of
Brahmans, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and Shudras did not always
exist and its conception was, for the most part, for purely
economic and political reasons. It will be possible, with this
theory, to understand how authors of recent Mahabharata
retellings depict the caste system in their novels and what
justifications are given for this system.
Similarly, marginalization because of gender has also
undergone changes with the advent of feminist and gender
theories. For this purpose, Indian feminist theories will be
used. The reason for choosing Indian feminist theories is that
the texts considered talk about women in India. Western
feminism has been shown to be different than Indian feminism.
Feminists in India look at the issues of gender differently
because it is a very complex issue in India and is also
intimately related with the issue of caste. The texts which
will be used include Sharmila Rege’s Writing Caste/Writing Gender
and Uma Chakravarti’s Gendering Caste: Through a Feminist Lens.
In Myth: A Very Short Introduction, Robert Segal gives myth theories
by various scholars. In ‘Myth and Society’ he writes about the
28
views of Bronislaw Malinowski , who says “myths deal even more
with social phenomena-marriage, taxes, ...ritual.” According
to Malinowski “myth persuades denizens to defer to, say, ranks
in society by pronouncing those ranks long-standing and in
that sense observed.” (126) In Myth in Primitive Psychology,
Malinowski writes that,” an intimate connection exists between
the word, the mythos, the sacred tales of a tribe, on the one
hand, and their ritual acts, their moral deeds, their social
organization, and even their practical activities, on the
other” (74). The same, when applied to Indian mythology
especially the Mahabharata, would mean that the society and its
traditions described in it reflect the society of its time.
Therefore, the notions of caste and gender as given in the
epic can be seen as observed in actual society. The retellings
considered in this research also reflect a certain society and
Malinowski’s theory can be used to understand how this
happens.
In Cosmos and History: The Myth of the Eternal Return, Mircea Eliade
writes that “man constructs according to an archetype” (25).
The Online Oxford Dictionary defines archetype as “an original
which has been imitated, a prototype.” Therefore, according to
29
Eliade, myths are archetypes which men imitate and follow.
Myths are intrinsically related to the beliefs and customs of
man. Eliade says that there occurs a “metamorphosis of a
historical figure into a mythical hero.” This is how he
explains the “mythicization of historical prototypes” (57).
He also writes about the “regeneration of time” and how it
“abolishes history” (53). He says that time is cyclic and
hence every new cycle tends to change and hence “abolish” the
previous time. Similarly, myths are continuously being
regenerated through their retellings and hence these
retellings work to change, subvert or sometimes even abolish
the previous myth. Over the centuries there have been many
retellings of the Mahabharata and each of these retellings has
changed the epic and the myth in some way or the other. The
perspective that people used to view the epic has changed. He
says that the continuous regeneration of time “tends to
restore the initial instant, the plenitude of a present that
contains no trace of history.” (76) He also says further that
man feels the need to return to the beginning, to “the
mythical moment”, in order to “regenerate himself” (77).
Hence, the retellings of the epic are also a means of going
30
back and reinterpreting what we know of our culture, history
and mythology and making it relevant to contemporary times.
The study uses the above mentioned caste and gender theories
and myth theories to understand the changes in caste and
gender margins in society and also how these are reflected in
literature through the use of myth.
Chapterization:
Chapter I
The first chapter will elaborate on the changing margins of
caste as represented in the selected primary sources. It will
give a brief history of the caste system because it is
necessary to understand the evolution of the caste system in
order to understand if and how changes have occurred in it.
The chapter will give examples of characters from both the
primary sources. Through the characters the different views of
the caste system will be shown and it will become easier to
determine the changes, if any, in the portrayal of the system.
31
Chapter II
This chapter will be about the gender issues discussed in the
two primary sources. The changes in problems of gender and the
progression of women in society will be discussed in brief.
Characters in the two primary sources will again be used to
establish gender norms and to understand if there have been
any changes in margins of genders over the years since the
conception of the epic.
Conclusion:
This chapter will give the conclusion of the research. It will
bring together the studies done in chapters one and two, and
try to determine what conclusion can be drawn from the
research.
32
CHAPTER I
This chapter focuses on caste in the selected Mahabharata
retellings and analyzes characters from the retellings to
understand if, and how, margins of caste have changed in
contemporary times with respect to certain issues like caste
hierarchization, caste mobility, privileges accorded to
certain castes, and inequality in opportunities available for
different castes.
Caste as a dividing factor has been present in Indian society
for many years. Uma Chakravarti, in Gendering Caste: Through a
Feminist Lens, writes that the caste system is seen as “(i) a
ritual system; (ii) a system of marriage; and (iii) a
political and economic system (56). Dipankar Gupta, in
Interrogating Caste, defines the caste system as “a form of
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differentiation wherein the constituent units of the system
justify endogamy on the basis of putative biological
differences which are semaphored by the ritualization of
multiple social practices.” (141)
Both the above mentioned books will be used here to provide a
brief history of the caste system in India. It is necessary to
understand the history of the caste system because, as Gupta
says, “If the ideology and practice of the caste system
underwent modifications over time […] then there is no reason
why it should not do so in future as well” (178-179). The
study of these changes will help in determining the
transformations that have, or have not, occurred over the
course of many years and how these are reflected through the
retellings of the Mahabharata.
There are four castes in which the Indian society is said to
be divided-the Brahmins, the Kshatriyas, the Vaishyas and the
Shudras. The Untouchables were the people who were outside of
the caste system. (Chakravarti, 9) According to Gupta, “the
caste system is often considered to be a graded hierarchy
based on the purity-pollution scale” (34) but, he says that
the hierarchy of the caste system cannot be easily defined
34
because “there is no agreement over who should occupy which
position in the hierarchy.” Therefore, even though it is
agreed upon that castes should be hierarchized, the exact
hierarchy is not fixed and it will depend on “the prejudices
of the particular caste that is elaborating this hierarchy”
(35).
Gupta gives a history of the caste system from Vedic India and
the Upanishadic period. He writes that the Brahmana and
Kshatriya castes, or those of the priests and the kings, had
not developed distinctively but were in fact “jointly
responsible for upholding the social order” (186). It was only
in the Manusmriti (c.200 CE) that a clear distinction was made
between the king and the Brahmana. It outlined the duties and
the role of a king as separate from a priest. The Brahmanas
who enjoyed the support of the king could claim higher status,
while those who couldn’t, had to take up other jobs, even jobs
as “lowly” as carpentry. Therefore, the importance of power
and politics in the formation and maintenance of the caste
system cannot be ignored.
Gupta also asserts that the notion of Brahmanism and the Vedas
was not always accepted as true. Importance was given to land
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ownership, and the Brahmana’s “superior ritual status did not
always entail superior economic and political power”. The
warrior-priest gave way, in later years, to separate
identities for both warriors and priests. The Brahmanas became
powerful on the basis of their supposed religious knowledge
but, nonetheless, those who did not own land of their own were
not considered to be dominant.
But at the same time, it was not only wealth that mattered in
defining one’s status but also one’s position in society.
Therefore, the landlords were higher in the social order than
the priests and the merchants, even though wealthy, were not
part of the nobility.
Later, during the Gupta period (around 300 A.D.), Brahmanism
spread to other parts of the country because of the land
grants given to the Brahmanas, it changed the social
structures and also modes of production of the communities
living in these areas. Also, kings were conquering new lands
through wars and the people from the vanquished lands were
being relocated to different parts, thus further changing the
structure of the caste system. It is true, though, that exact
records of these periods in history are not available.
36
Therefore, the modes of production and the backing of the
state were important in the formation of the caste system
(Chakravarti 57-58, 63).
Chakravarti writes about the eighteenth century, as an example
from pre-colonial times, when caste mobility was observed in
the hierarchy of castes. Mobility occurred because of division
of castes, both high and low. Castes could move either up or
down in the hierarchy depending on their social practices. She
gives an example of ‘true’ and ‘false’ Rajputs, the ‘false’
Rajputs being those who allowed widow remarriages. But, it is
also true that mobility within castes was seen more amongst
the middle castes but castes which were higher or lower in the
caste hierarchy had more rigid structures.
With the coming of the British there were many changes in the
lives of Indians. The British soon found that they could not
avoid the issue of caste while dealing with India. It was also
seen that the lower castes were hoping to “renegotiate” their
status with the coming of the new rulers. The higher castes
“could act like the king” to settle disputes between castes
because the British were unaware of the intricacies of the
caste system and had to rely on internal help. Another way by
37
which the lower castes sought to let go for their caste status
was by converting to Christianity. The main reason for this
was the education available for Christians through the
missionary schools that the British government had set up.
Education led to jobs for the lower castes and hence they
could try to move up in the caste hierarchy. In the nineteenth
century there emerged critiques against caste hierarchies.
Jyotiba Phule, among others, was the pioneer of this critique.
He spoke against the Sanskritization process where lower
castes attempted to move upward in the system by inculcating
the values and rituals of the upper castes. He emphasized on
education, which would lead to the questioning of Brahmanical
norms of society. It was only through education that the lower
castes could hope to hold any positions of power in the
government. Therefore, there were many changes occurring in
the caste system during the colonial period.
The changes in the system during the colonial period led to
many reforms. The caste system, therefore, changed in the
post-colonial period too. Dr. Ambedkar was the pioneer of the
Dalit movement which sought to improve the conditions of the
dalits who were at the lowest rungs of the caste hierarchy.
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The Constitution of India, drafted under the Chairmanship of
Dr. Ambedkar, abolished Untouchability. In contemporary times,
there have been reservations made for the OBCs (Other Backward
Castes), SCs (Scheduled Castes) and STs (Scheduled Tribes) by
the government in the areas of education and employment. But,
this has been “disapproved..by the upper castes who have never
conceded the validity of such provisions, and have decried
them on the ground of dealing a death blow to the ‘merit’
principle” (Chakravarti 140). Alternatively, this disapproval
could also be seen as a reaction to their loss of power.
The issues of caste and the structure of the caste system have
changed over many years but it has not entirely disappeared
and hence it forms a major part of contemporary Indian society
too. There are many issues regarding caste that are still
debated and require attention. In various villages all over
India, the caste system forms a very important part of
everyday life. Lower caste people are not allowed to enter
temples, women are required to get water from separate
sources, students are discriminated against in schools. The
Dalit movement is still fighting against untouchability. In
many villages in the north, khap panchayats (a form of village
39
council, but unelected) are in charge of maintaining caste
structures. The issues of caste are not only confined to the
villages and are observed in cities and towns too. But it is
true that in public spaces in the cities caste discrimination
is not largely practiced. Therefore, the caste system remains
an issue which cannot be ignored in contemporary India too.
I will now look at certain characters portrayed in the two
primary sources to understand the representation of caste by
the two contemporary authors. Karna, Suyodhana/Duryodhana,
Ashwatthama are characters which are common to both the
primary sources and a comparative study of these characters
will be done. I will look at how the authors have represented
issues of caste through their characters. Another important
point of difference is the narratorial voice of the two
novels. Both novels are third-person narratives, but the
crucial difference is that Kane’s narrative is selective and
the narrative progresses through Uruvi’s eyes. In Ajaya the
narrator is omniscient and the reader can, therefore, know the
inner thoughts of all the main characters.
Karna:
40
“Karna’s story pulls at the heartstrings in a particularly
human way because of his vulnerability, his overbearing pride
stemming from his insecurity, his loyalty, and the nobility he
exhibits in the process of seeking his dharma and fulfilling
his destiny.”
Christopher Key Chappel
Karna is one of the most important characters in the
Mahabharata and he could be deemed as the tragic hero1 of the
epic. From his birth itself, nothing goes right for him. He is
abandoned by his mother, Kunti, because she had given birth to
him when she was still unmarried and she was afraid of the
reaction of her family and the society to this fact. He is
brought up by Adhiratha and Radha who belong to the suta caste
and that is the caste that defines his life.
The suta caste was one of the prevalent castes of the time.
Vidura and Sanjaya, two other characters in the Mahabharata also
belonged to this caste. In Yuganta Karve writes, about the sutas,
1 Abrams and Harpham have given the Aristotelian definition of a tragic hero as a character who “will most effectively evoke both our pity and terror if he is neither thoroughly good nor thoroughly bad but a mixture ofboth” […] and who suffers “a change in fortune from happiness to misery because of his mistaken choice of an action, to which he is led by his hamartia-his “error” or “mistake of judgement” or […] “his tragic flaw” (408).
41
saying that they are “a class of people.... representing the
illegitimate progeny of the Kshatriyas [who] performed various
functions at the Court. They were counsellors and friends of
kings, charioteers, and also bards.” Dr. S.V. Ketkar called
the Mahabharata, the Ramayana and the Puranas as sauta literature,
“literature belonging to the sutas, preserved and sung by the
sutas and perhaps largely composed by the sutas.” (3-4)
Therefore, Karna belonged to the caste of charioteers and
bards. He was expected to become a charioteer himself, but was
keener on learning the art of warfare, an education that only
the Kshatriyas were supposed to pursue. He had to face a lot
of humiliation because of this wish and hence, even with his
valour and abilities, he remains one of the tragic figures in
the epic.
Kane’s Karna and Neelakantan’s Karna are a little different.
In both the novels, he is shown through someone else’s eyes,
in Kane’s novel through his wife Uruvi’s and in Neelakantan’s
novel through the omniscient narrator. Uruvi’s narration
glorifies Karna as a person who has been dealt a very bad hand
by fate but who stays true to his ideals and beliefs despite
of all the difficulties he faces. She describes him as a
42
“man....born in adversity” whose life “was a fairytale gone
wrong”. (12) Karna’s caste is, of course, a large part of who
he is in the novel and it also affects many of his decisions.
Kane portrays Karna as someone who doesn’t conform to the
prevalent caste rules and who is, in fact, eager to break away
from the caste system but he would always be seen as “the King
of Anga, the king with a crown of thorns, the king who was a
sutaputra” (13). Kane’s novel also questions the issue of a
supposedly lower-caste man, Karna, instigating the humiliation
of an upper-caste woman, Draupadi. Here, Karna, a man
marginalized on the basis of caste, becomes dominant instead
of dominated. Therefore, there is a new dynamic in caste
hierarchization. A more contemporary example of this could be
the reservation policy of the government for the lower castes.
As mentioned above, this policy has not been taken favourably
by the upper castes and has been seen as a move to displace
their social power.
Also, because the novel begins mid-way through Karna’s life,
from the weaponry contest between the princes of Hastinapura,
his caste has already defined him and made him the man he is.
In Ajaya, on the other hand, Karna’s life since childhood has
43
been shown and therefore, the novel explains more about how
his caste defines him. Neelakantan’s Karna is a Kshatriya, a
Brahmin and a suta. He is a Kshatriya by birth, even if he is
unaware of this fact initially, he is a suta because he has
been brought up as one and he is a Brahmin because Kripacharya
teaches him to be one. Therefore, he could be defined as
belonging to all three castes, depending on how one chooses to
define caste.
Caste, therefore, forms a major part of Karna’s narrative. But
in the two novels that are considered it has been portrayed
differently. In Kane’s novel, Karna chooses to remain a suta
all his life, even when Krishna and Kunti tell him the truth
of his birth, he does not want to let go of his suta identity.
He says to Uruvi in the novel, “I am not ashamed of who I am.
I am proud to be Radheya, the sutaputra, the son of Adhiratha
and Radha.” (42) On the other hand, in Ajaya, he seems almost
ashamed of his suta identity. When Adhiratha acknowledges him
as a son, Karna refuses to look up at him and acknowledge him
as his father. He feels angry about the fact that his father
chose that moment to call out to him. He thinks to himself,”
Why did he have to do that? I would have gone to him after the
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event, after the world understood I am a better archer than
Arjuna. Now I stand insulted before all because of my foolish
father.” (260) In Ajaya, Neelakantan shows the lengths to which
Karna is ready to go to in order to become a Kshatriya. His
narrative brings out his desire to be someone he is not. While
in Kane’s novel, even though this desire is present, Karna
seems to have already accepted his position in life.
Therefore, caste appears to be a more prominent factor in
defining Neelakantan’s Karna.
Even though both authors have portrayed Karna differently, the
issues of caste that have been discussed remain the same.
Karna, in both the novels, is an example of a person who wants
to become something that society will not allow him to be
because of his caste. He becomes a representation of many
individuals who are discriminated against because of their
caste even if they have the merit to move beyond the system.
Ashwatthama:
Ashwatthama is the son of Dronacharya, the guru of the Kuru
princes. By caste they are Brahmins, but Dronacharya teaches
weaponry and the art of warfare to the princes. Therefore,
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even though they are Brahmins they practice a Kshatriya way of
life.
Neelakantan describes them as a “tall, fair Brahmin with the
dark flowing beard....his wife, an emaciated and frail
woman...the boy with them stood still, his big black eyes
filled with wonderment.” (30) Dronacharya could be considered
as an example of those Brahmins who obtain positions of power
because they are favoured by the king. Gupta, in his book,
talks about how some Brahmins who were in favour of the king
could be better off than others who did not own land or were
not in the service of the king. Therefore, along with caste,
it is also necessary to consider the class here.
Drona’s family, though Brahmins, were very poor. They were at
the lower end of the class hierarchy (“the political and
economic status with the landlords at the top and the landless
labourers at the bottom”), but at the upper end of the caste
hierarchy (“according to ritual purity with the brahmana on
top and the ‘untouchables’ at the bottom”). But, as
Chakravarti points out, “the upper castes enjoy social power,
regardless of their individual circumstances with respect to
control over material resources, through their linkages with
46
other caste-fellows in the political system” (13). Drona too
has such an advantageous linkage through his brother-in-law,
Kripacharya.
He is employed at the Kuru court as a teacher for the princes.
This allowed him to have a lot of control over them. But,
again, this control was only possible because of Dhritarashtra
and Bhishma, the elders of the Kuru clan. Therefore, he too
becomes an example of the marginalized that are considered
both dominated and dominating.
In Ajaya, Dronacharya is someone who strictly adheres to the
caste system, he practices untouchability and expects his son
to do so. He has been portrayed as a very strict Brahmin who
follows the scriptures and therefore, the caste system as
given in the scriptures. Aswatthama too follows his father in
practicing the Kshatriya way of life and is trained as a
warrior, but he does not conform to the rules of his Brahmin
caste. His biggest fault, according to Drona, is that he
befriends Karna, a suta, and this is the reason for the divide
between Drona and his son.
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Ashwatthama’s life since childhood has been shown by
Neelakantan in Ajaya. It is because of his father that he too
is interested in following the Kshatriya dharma and learning
the art of war. But as portrayed in the novel, Dronacharya
favours Arjuna more than his own son and this causes
Ashwatthama to resent his father. In Ajaya he seems to be in a
place between the two castes, Brahmin and Kshatriya, because
he doesn’t follow his father’s beliefs and customs but neither
is he a Kshatriya. An example of this would be the weaponry
competition held for the Kuru princes in which Ashwatthama was
barred from participating, even though he had learnt the use
of weapons in the same lessons as the princes. Neelakantan’s
Ashwatthama is portrayed to be much more boisterous and
outgoing than Kane’s Ashwatthama.
Kane describes him, through Uruvi, as “a young lad, a serious,
quiet boy, always courteous and obedient” (70) and for Uruvi,
Ashwatthama’s brutal killing of the Pandavas’ sons comes as a
surprise at the end of the war. It is probably because in her
eyes he was a simple, Brahmin boy and not really the Kshatriya
he tried to be all his life. In this way, Karna and
Ashwatthama are similar. They both try to move away from their
48
castes to become Kshatriyas, which was the prominent caste of
the time. Therefore, both these characters can also be seen as
examples of caste mobility. Chakravarti writes “caste
mobilization was one aspect of the changing dimensions of
class formation and the relationship between caste and class,
which might translate into upward social mobility moves”
(120). Therefore, their desire of becoming Kshatriyas could be
attributed to their desire to move up in the social hierarchy
and be a part of the prevalent caste.
Mobility in castes is also seen in contemporary India,
especially because of the castes almost losing their
functionalities. Castes were associated with certain functions
in society with the sons continuing in the same professions as
their fathers. But this functionality has now changed and, in
both cities and villages, it is not surprising to see the
younger generation moving away from the professions practised
in their families for decades. This change in functionality of
the caste system has not only led to caste mobility but class
mobility too. Ashwatthama as a character is still relevant
even in contemporary society because he represents these
changes that have occurred and continue to occur.
49
Suyodhana/ Duryodhana:
In the Mahabharata Duryodhana is considered to be the villain of
the epic. As various authors extol the virtues of the
Pandavas, Duryodhana is the one who is almost always cast as
the villain. In her M.Phil thesis, Anusha Ramanathan writes
that “it is interesting that while Yudhishtir’s family members
mostly got individual credit for their actions and thoughts,
it is Duryodhana who is held responsible for each deed of his
family and friends” (28). It is this popular image of
Duryodhana that has been completely subverted by Neelakantan
and hence in his novel, Suyodhana (popularly called
Duryodhana) becomes the victim of the schemes of his uncle
Shakuni and his cousins, the Pandavas.
With respect to the issue of caste that is of interest here,
Duryodhana is someone who seems entirely casteless. But is he
really? He is a Kshatriya whose closest friends include a suta,
Karna and a Brahmin, Ashwatthama. In Ajaya, he defends Karna at
the weaponry contest by saying that Karna “is someone truly
deserving of becoming a Kshatriya” and that “talent knows no
caste” (262).
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He is portrayed as someone who has an idealised dream for the
future society. He says “I see a tomorrow where all barriers
will crumble and we will live in a free world. I see a future
where we stop asking people about their caste and treat each
other as equals. I see my country breaking free of the
irrational beliefs and superstitions. I see a tomorrow where
there will be no limits placed on what one can achieve. The
accident of birth will not stand in the way of achievement.”
(Neelakantan 262) But, while having such a vision for the
future, he does not think to support Eklavya as he does Karna.
Why would he differentiate between the “accident of birth” of
Eklavya and Karna and choose to make one a king but not expend
any efforts for the other, except a feeling of guilt? There
have been debates on whether Duryodhana’s decision of making
Karna the King of Anga was based on his generosity and sense
of equality or his selfish motives to best the Pandavas. If
his support of Karna is taken to be for selfish reasons, would
this explain why he does not help Eklavya who, with his thumb
cut, does not prove to be an asset anymore? On the other hand,
Eklavya is a nishada, an untouchable who is outside of the
caste system. He cannot even be given the support and help
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that Karna, as a lower-caste man, could be given by some like
Duryodhana and Kripacharya.
Duryodhana is seen as “a Prince [who] dared [to] challenge
the system” (Neelakantan 264). But is this only possible for
Duryodhana because he belongs to the upper caste in society?
It could be interpreted this way because others like Karna and
Eklavya, even with their talents and abilities, were unable to
do so. They did not have the privileges of caste that
Duryodhana seems to have. Duryodhana is a prince of the Kuru
kingdom and even though there may be fights amongst the
cousins, as a member of the ruling household he has certain
rights and advantages. Therefore, Karna might not have been
able to achieve recognition as a warrior and hence challenge
the structure of society if he did not have the friendship of
Duryodhana.
But, on the other hand, even though it is true that he belongs
to the prominent caste of the time he cannot use this to his
advantage every time. His guru, Drona, clearly shows a bias
when behaving with the Kauravas and the Pandavas. This only
goes to show that within castes too there may be hierarchies
based on familial relations and politics.
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It is also important to consider Duryodhana’s friendship with
Karna and Ashwatthama. How does he perceive both his friends?
Even though he extols the virtues of Karna and declares him a
Kshatriya based on his merits, Karve points out that he “never
offered a girl from the Kaurava family as a bride to Karna”
(142). Therefore, he too, probably indirectly, conforms to
caste rules and practices endogamy, “the rule enjoining marriage
within a specified group, that is, caste” (Chakravarti 27).
Chakravarti writes that “caste cannot be reproduced without
endogamy and it is for this reason that endogamy has been
regarded as a tool for the manifestation and perpetuation of
caste and gender subordination” (27). Therefore, Duryodhana
too can be seen as practicing caste discrimination, may be not
outwardly but in a more innate sense.
This is true also for contemporary Indian society where, quite
often, individuals overtly do not discriminate against the
lower castes but when it comes to the issue of marriage the
caste of a person is immediately taken into account. This is
also seen in various matrimonial columns in the newspapers, as
given by Chakravarti (146), or through matrimonial sites which
have sections based on caste. It is also seen in the horrific
53
cases of honour killings in India, where families kill their
own children because they have married into other castes.
Therefore, even though discrimination of any kind has been
abolished by the Constitution, it remains ever present in the
private world of Indian citizens. Chakravarti writes that the
makers of the Constitution were aware that it would be
extremely difficult to completely abolish the caste system and
“so the practice of caste was sought to be confined to the
private realm” but she also says that this has been largely
unsuccessful and “even from the public sphere caste cannot be
banished so easily and never has been” (140).
In Kane’s novel the reader sees Duryodhana as Uruvi sees him.
For Uruvi, Duryodhana is “coarse, brutal and devious” (79).
She believes that the only reason that Duryodhana has
befriended Karna is because he wants the advantage that Karna
will provide during the war with the Pandavas. She has seen
how everyone treats Karna because he is a sutaputra, but
Duryodhana does not and that causes her to question his
intentions. She does not live in a world where caste
distinctions are so easily forgotten and hence she is wary of
him. But, Kane seems to want to redeem him of these doubts by
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the end of the novel because Duryodhana says, on Karna’s
death, that “Karna was above any caste, any social order-he
was unique, too special! I always believed that Karna was a
kshatriya; his actions, his thinking were those of a true
kshatriya!” (286)
From both these portrayals of Duryodhana, the authors have
shown that it is difficult to be entirely casteless and that
the issue of caste is so ingrained in society, even today,
that it is not entirely possible to ignore it even if one
wants to.
The research will now look at characters which are not common
to both the primary sources. These characters include Vidura,
Eklavya from Ajaya and Uruvi from Karna’s Wife.
Vidura:
Vidura was the brother of Dhritarashtra and Pandu and
therefore, the uncle of the Kuru princes. But he was the son
of a palace maid and hence was never considered for the Kuru
throne. Vidura, too, is a suta and even though the sutas were
“extremely close to the Kshatriyas, of the same blood as the
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Kshatriyas, in a position to advise them without fear, they
could never become the Kshatriyas’ equals” (Karve 68).
According to Karve, “the Mahaharata... is completely silent about
Vidura” (71), but, Neelakantan gives him a voice in Ajaya.
Neelakantan’s Vidura is a character that remains in the
background of the narrative and yet finds a voice. He is
someone who Bhishma and Dhritarashtra both rely upon and his
sense of duty is very strong. But at the same time, he is a
man who has accepted his position in life and in the court of
the Kurus. He is not seen to be taking the efforts that Karna
or Eklavya do in order to move up in the hierarchy of castes.
According to Karve “in comparison with the other characters in
the Mahabharata it can be said that his life was a happy
one....but still it feels as if an indefinable sadness and
melancholy filled his life” (70) Neelakantan too portrays
Vidura as a character whose acceptance of his position as a
suta leads him to be ignored and isolated in the narrative. In
the introduction scene itself, Vidura acknowledges his status
and forbids Suyodhana from touching him (22-23). His
appointment as the Prime Minister is met with disapproval from
the Brahmins, but it is only because of Bhishma and Vyasa’s
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intervention that it is finally accepted. It is interesting to
note that while some Brahmins are against this, it is another
Brahmin, Vyasa, who supports Bhishma’s decision.
Vidura does not ask for privileges from the Kuru household
despite of being Dhristarashtra’s brother and the Prime
Minister. When Parshavi, Vidura’s wife asks him why he doesn’t
take advantage of his position to get a better house she tells
him that he “seem[s] to enjoy poverty” (Neelakantan 64). In
the novel, Vidura is the one who realizes that Shakuni is up
to something and warns Bhishma about it. He is also the one
who takes Karna to Drona to ask the guru to teach the suta. But
he is refused both times. Vidura realizes that “no one with
the baggage of low caste, like him, could aspire to be even a
clerk in government service....merit no longer counted. Every
position was based on caste” (Neelakantan 85). He also feels
extremely guilty about being away from his sons due to work
but he convinces himself by saying “yet this is my fate, to
toil hard and feel guilty for not spending enough time with
them” (Neelakantan 148). But even with these thoughts he
believes himself to be powerless to do anything, unlike the
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other suta in the novel, Karna, who strives hard to be
recognized as a Kshatriya.
Even though Neelakantan gives him a voice, the third person
narration allows the readers to know Vidura’s inner thoughts
of helplessness and guilt towards his family, Vidura remains
in the background in the entire narrative, almost as if he is
powerless to change what is happening around him. Vidura’s
portrayal is mirroring countless individuals who have accepted
their lower caste status almost as their due and who do not
attempt to, or think that they cannot, change their
situations.
Eklavya:
Eklavya is a nishada boy who is a part of one of the most
well-known stories from the Mahabharata. Being a nishada, he is
not accepted as a student by Drona. But Eklavya is determined
to learn archery and hence he makes a clay model of Drona and
learns in front of the model. When Drona realizes this and
sees Eklavya’s skills in archery he asks Eklavya to give him a
guru dakshina. Eklavya readily agrees. Drona asks Eklavya to cut
off his right thumb and give it to him as guru dakshina. Eklavya
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unhesitatingly does so, but with this Drona successfully
thwarts a nishada who could have been a better archer than his
favourite pupil, Arjuna.
In Ajaya, Neelakantan makes Eklavya one of the main characters
of the novel. He is shown to be the son of General
Hiranyadhanus, a nishada in the army of King Jarasandha. He is
unaware of this fact, though, and lives a life of poverty in
the forests surrounding Hastinapura with his aunt and five
cousins. The first glimpse of Eklavya is when he comes to
steal a mango from the Princes. He is only described as “a
dark boy” (Neelakantan 33). As the novel progresses we learn
that Eklavya is interested in learning archery but is unable
to do so because of his caste. He is also shown to be
associated with the Nagas, another marginalized group.
Neelakantan describes the episode of the guru dakshina where
Eklavya has to sever his thumb for Drona. Eklavya, in this
episode, is a boy who believes that he can become an archer
but is cruelly, and literally, shown his place by the guru. He
believes that “he paid the required fee...for the knowledge he
had stolen” (201). But in the novel, Eklavya’s story does not
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end here. He goes on to join the Nagas in a rebellion against
Hastinapura.
In another episode in the epic, a woman and her five sons are
left to die in the fire in the house of lac instead of Kunti
and the Pandavas. Neelakantan uses this episode to further the
story of Eklavya because the woman and her sons are none other
than Eklavya’s aunt and his five cousins. Kunti and the
Pandavas cunningly invite the nishadas home and serve them
sweets which are laced with drugs. Eklavya soon realizes this
and the killing of his aunt and cousins, and the crushing of
his own dreams, act as fuel to the anger that Eklavya is
already feeling. It is at such a time that Eklavya joins the
Nagas who believe that “there is no future for us [the Nagas]
in this country, unless we overturn the caste system” (310).
Therefore, in the novel Eklavya becomes another example of
someone who has been unjustly discriminated against because of
his caste and who decides to rebel against the system. His way
of rebelling, though, is questionable because he himself is
unaware of what the Nagas plan to do to overturn the system.
But, nonetheless, by giving him a voice Neelakantan has
attempted to give a voice to the marginalized and has shown
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how the oppressed too can find ways to rebel against the
oppressors.
Uruvi:
Kane’s novel is from the perspective of Uruvi, the princess of
Pukeya. Uruvi, though, is a fictional character. She says in
an interview that the novel was written as “a result of a long
afterthought of how Karna’s wife would have reacted to his
moral downfall, post the ‘vastraharan’ episode where he is
said to have played a dubious role. With what face did this
noble, righteous man was able to confront his wife and admit
that he had wronged a woman?” (srutis.blogspot.in)
While she gives this reason as an inspiration for the novel,
it is far more interesting to question why she thought that it
was necessary to create a character to question Karna’s role
in the vastraharan episode? Karna already had a suta wife,
Vrushali. Why, then, did Kane create a character who is not
only Karna’s second wife but also a Princess, someone who
belongs to an upper caste? Couldn’t she have written the book
from Vrushali’s perspective? Therefore, the question of caste
once more becomes important in this retelling of the epic.
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Uruvi is a princess who has been brought up with every comfort
and who is loved by her parents. Her decision to marry Karna
is not a favourable one, as her father points out to her,
because she is a Kshatriya while he is a suta. Her marriage is
said to be pratilomic, a marriage between an upper caste woman
and a lower caste man. Her marriage was not endogamous and, as
Chakravarti writes, “any violation of the rule of endogamy is
punished by expulsion, usually referred to as ‘outcasting’
(33). Thus, Uruvi herself becomes an outcast and is also an
outcast’s wife.
Shona, Karna’s brother is not happy with Uruvi’s marriage to
Karna. He does not agree to the marriage because, as he says,
“she’s a Kshatriya princess, a stranger, an outsider who will
never be able to mingle with us” (Kane 45). Even with
Vrushali, her relationship is nothing beyond cordial. Kane
describes it by writing that “they talked, they chatted, they
lunched together, but Uruvi sensed a distance between them.
For all their amiability they remained stubbornly unfamiliar,
two strangers under the same roof, sharing and loving the same
man” (Kane 50). On the other hand, for Karna’s parents “she
was a goddess who dared to tread the mortal path” (Kane 51).
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Karna too “never let her forget that she was a Kshatriya
princess, part of the elite” (Kane 53). Therefore, there were
conflicting ways in which Karna’s family, and Karna himself,
looked at Uruvi.
When Uruvi learns of Draupadi’s vastraharan and Karna’s role in
it, she decides to leave him and go back to Pukeya. But is it
only because she is a Kshatriya princess that she has the
privilege to do this? Kane does not write about what
Vrushali’s reaction to the entire episode was. Is it only
Uruvi who could be entitled to express her opinion and anger?
Kane provides a new perspective to Karna’s story because of
her upper caste fictional character. Uruvi’s Kshatriya way of
life is different from Karna and his family’s way of life.
Uruvi has been brought up with certain privileges, morals and
beliefs that she carries into her life as a suta’s wife. But
can these be applied to a life that is so different from hers?
These doubts are voiced by Shona when he says “..the question
here is-is she worthy of you? Is she suited for you, for our
family?” (67)
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Nonetheless, by the end of the novel she too takes the
decision, like Karna, of continuing her suta way of life
instead of returning to the Hastinapura palace with the
Pandavas and living the life of a Kshatriya. This can also be
perceived as a privilege that Uruvi has, to live her life as
she wants to. It is a privilege that is difficult for most
people belonging to the lower castes. But though she belongs
to the suta caste through marriage, she is a Kshatriya by birth
and this gives her a certain advantage over other sutas.
The same cannot be said of Karna, who was a suta by adoption.
He could have certain Kshatriya privileges, not because he was
one by birth but, because he was the closest friend of
Duryodhana. His life as a suta was based more on having no
choice, even though he does choose later to die as Radheya
rather than a Pandava.
Kane’s Uruvi can be considered as the portrayal of a woman for
whom caste is not as important as it is for the society she
lives in. Through her narration, Uruvi tells the readers
Karna’s story, for her Karna is not simply defined by his
caste but by his qualities of being courageous, kind and loyal
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but also misguided. For her Karna is first her warrior husband
and then a sutaputra.
Conclusion:
Both, Kane and Neelakantan, have retold an age-old story in
their novels. In Kane’s novel, caste issues are always in the
background of the plot as she focuses on bringing out the
human traits of all her characters. For Neelakantan, on the
other hand, caste is a very contemporary evil in society and
it forms the central core of his narrative. It is interesting
to see that two novels published in the same year have such
different approaches to the Mahabharata and its representation
of caste. But, at the same time, it is observed that these
authors have chosen to retell the epic because contemporary
issues can still be discussed through its characters. Another
issue that this research looks at is of gender. Gender studies
have progressed at a great speed in the past few decades and
this research will attempt to analyse these changes in the
selected novels. Gender in the retellings of the Mahabharata
will be discussed in the next chapter.
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Gender is, and always has been, an important issue of
discussion and debate. Theoretically speaking, it is necessary
to distinguish between sex and gender. Simone de Beauvoir
writes in her book, The Second Sex that “one is not born, but
rather becomes, a woman.” (qtd. Butler 35) Here, she is
clearly differentiating between sex and gender by associating
one with the biological self and the other with the
sociological. Judith Butler, in her essay on de Beauvoir’s
book says that “sex is understood to be the invariant,
anatomically distinct, and factic aspects of the female body,
whereas gender is the cultural meaning and form that that body
acquires, the variable modes of that body’s acculturation.”
(35) According to Butler, de Beauvoir does not accept gender
as being natural. She writes that we do not understand
ourselves with respect to our sex, it is always with respect
to our gender because “we never know our sex outside of its
expression as gender” (39). Therefore, gender cannot be
studied in isolation from culture.
Gender issues form an important part of social debates in
contemporary India. Uma Chakravarti explains some of the
prominent issues relating to gender in India, in her book
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Gendering Caste. She traces a history of gender in India through
the book while highlighting issues such as marriage,
widowhood, control of sexuality etc.
She starts with the Rig Vedic and later Vedic society which,
according to her, the nineteenth century Hindu nationalists
have “romanticized” as the “golden era” for women. (42) But
Chakravarti writes that this period has not been studied
thoroughly and from the information that is available it can
be said that the society was “strongly patriarchal”. A woman’s
main function was that of the “reproducer” as the marriage
rituals of the time indicate and therefore, there was strong
patriarchal control over women’s sexuality. This control was
attributed to the beginnings of social stratification and the
practice of marrying within clans, in other words, the
beginning of the system of endogamy. Later Vedic texts like
the Grihya Sutras highlight concerns about the wife, it was
necessary that the wife be “carefully selected, carefully
groomed and carefully controlled” (44).
Around the second century A.D., according to Chakravarti, the
Manusmriti became the primary text for defining caste and gender
in the society. Great importance was attributed to the
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practice of endogamy and hence marriage. It is in this period
that Varnasamkara (the theory of mixed unions) was introduced
and the anulomic and pratilomic marriages were defined. Anulomic
marriages were between low caste women and high caste men,
these were accepted, while pratilomic marriages were between high
caste women and low caste men, these were unacceptable.
Therefore, the patriarchal society worked through control over
marriage practices.
Marriage practices served to keep a firm control over women’s
bodies. Chakravarti writes that “the honour and respectability
of upper caste men are regarded as protected and preserved by
women who therefore must be closely guarded and whose
sexuality is stringently monitored” (67). It was necessary
that the women make a smooth transition from virgin to wife to
motherhood. Motherhood was, therefore, “idealized and
ritualized”. Female sexuality was a matter of great concern
and had to be “managed” in order to keep the lineage pure.
According to Chakravarti, it was the realization that
“reproductive power was the one power that women still held in
the new structure of relations in which they were
subordinated” and it was thus necessary “to simultaneously
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exaggerate and treat women’s ‘innate’ nature as terribly
dangerous.” (72) Another concept that the patriarchal society
promulgated was that of strisvabhava and stridharma, “the
strisvabhava of women-their innate nature as sexual beings-was
in conflict with their stridharma of fidelity to the husband”
(72). Therefore, in order to keep their stridharma, the notion
of the pativrata became the ideal that women were taught to
aspire to. It was through epics such as the Ramayana that the
“pativrata ideal” was made popular. Sita became “the long-
suffering, patient, loving and faithful wife” to Rama, and she
also became the ideal woman for generations of Indian women
(75).
Chakravarti then moves to the pre-colonial era. She writes
about widowhood as being “a state of social death.” (82) A
woman’s life revolved around her husband and therefore on his
death “she ceased to be a person; she was then neither a
daughter nor a daughter-in-law”. The existence of a woman was
defined by her relationship to her husband and her role in the
production of heirs, as a widow she did not have any identity.
Many women committed sati on their husband’s pyre but those
who didn’t would be “physically alive” but “socially dead”.
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But she also writes that there were widow remarriages
practiced amongst the lower castes.
While taking the example of the eighteenth century in
Maharashtra, under the rule of the Peshwas, Chakravarti says
that all matters concerning women and their sexuality like
endogamy, remarriage, wifehood and widowhood was under the
control of the patriarchal structure. Adultery by women led
to excommunication from the society and “the state could even
induct the offending woman into slavery if no one was willing
to take responsibility for her.” (110) Therefore, women’s
lives were strictly monitored by the society.
With the coming of the British, there were many changes in
Indian society and its laws. Sati was abolished by law in
1829. The British did not interfere in religious practices of
the Indians and therefore the “personal laws”, like the
marriage laws, were left mostly unchanged. These laws have
continued into the post-independence period. The Widow
Remarriage Act was introduced in 1856. This act also led to
the renewal of the practice of levirate remarriage, i.e.,
marriage to the younger brother of the husband, in case of the
husband’s death, in some parts of the country. Also, the
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British government was hoping to homogenize the legal system
so that it could be better for administration and this led to
new laws which allowed marriages “across castes, and across
religious communities” (127). The notion of “love-marriage”
was also introduced during this period. Various other laws
were made during colonization including the first Age of
Consent Bill in 1861. This Bill was revised in the 1890s and
it led to subjecting a woman’s body to “the most critical gaze
in the public sphere”. These Bills did not change the practice
of child marriage but were introduced in order to legalize the
“age for a woman to be regarded as a consenting partner for
sexual relations” (134). At the same time, reformers like
Phule started stressing the importance of women’s education.
But, Chakravarti writes that the reformers “did not propose
drastic structural change” (135).
In the postcolonial period, “women are located in a way that
they can be both subordinated and also wield a degree of
power” (144). It is necessary to understand that only women of
a certain social standing could have this “power”. Their
subordination is, still, mainly in the areas of marriage and
reproduction with the practice of endogamy considered
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important. Women’s compliance to patriarchal structures is
“invisibilized under the seemingly more neutral notion of
upholding ‘tradition’, or the specific ‘cultures’ of families,
or of communities” (144). The notion of honour or izzat is also
very important and the responsibility of upholding this honour
rests with the woman of the family. Chakravarti writes that
“women are the repositories of family honour-of their own
family as daughter, and of their husband’s family as wife and
mother”. Brahmanical patriarchy, “despite the constitutional
guarantee of social and political equality to all citizens”,
continues to be the controlling force in society. (159)
Jasbir Jain writes, in Indigenous Roots of Indian Feminism, that three
of the most basic freedoms that Indian women aspire to have
are the “right to education, to body and to space within
marriage” (283). At the same time, she is careful not to
generalize and say that all Indian women aspire to these
freedoms because women’s lives are defined by many
things-“caste, class, urban, rural, tribal, education and its
absence, married, abandoned, widowed or divorced, single,
dependent or economically independent, barren or productive,
lesbian or heterosexual” and also religion (269). For the
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contemporary Indian woman creating an identity for herself,
bridging the gap between the traditional and the modern, are
challenges faced every day. Some of the issues that plagued
women decades ago continue to hamper the progress of women
today too. The expression of their sexuality, control over
their bodies, choices concerning their lives, marriage,
motherhood, widowhood are still concerns that women have to
deal with.
The Indian epics have always been a part of the Indian peoples
“collective unconscious”. Jain writes, that “images drawn
from them permeate written and oral cultures, political
interpretations, man-woman relationships and perpetuate role
models of every kind of human behaviour-father-son, husband-
wife, brother-brother, mother-son...” (29) Therefore, these
epics have played a very important part in the construction of
Indian society and the ideals that the society follows,
including gender. She writes further that “gender construction
in India has its roots in Sita’s agnipariksha, Draupadi’s
chirharan and Damayanti’s adherence to the pativrata code” (29).
The epics not only define roles for women but also men. The
Mahabharata is considered to be “one of the definitive cultural
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narratives in the construction of masculine and feminine
gender roles in ancient India” (Broadbeck and Black, 10). Not
only has it defined gender roles in the past but “its numerous
tellings and retellings have helped shape Indian gender and
social norms ever since” (10). The ways in which authors alter
gender roles in these retellings draw attention to the
changing social perceptions about these roles. Broadbeck and
Black write that “gender identities” are “unstable, subtly and
constantly changing” (13). Therefore, it is necessary to study
how contemporary authors incorporate these changing identities
into retelling a narrative which is already so familiar to
most of their readers.
I will now look at some of the characters in the two chosen
retellings to understand if, and how, the two authors have
highlighted the changes in gender roles. The characters chosen
are Draupadi, Kunti, Gandhari and Uruvi. These characters have
been chosen because they are some of the most important
characters in the epic and play an essential role in the
culmination of the epic in the Kurukshetra war. They are shown
to have a lot of influence on politics in the Hastinapura
court. Also, their roles in the epic, and its retellings, are
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intrinsically related with certain issues of caste and gender.
The main argument here is that authors of these retellings of
the epic are using the incidents and characters in the epic to
highlight alterations in margins of gender and are hence
representing contemporary reality with respect to certain
issues of gender.
Draupadi:
Draupadi is the daughter of King Drupada of Panchal. She is
referred to as “ayonija-sambhava, not of a woman born”
(‘Draupadi’ 20) because she has been born out of the
sacrificial fire. Drupada holds a yajna in order to obtain a
son, Dhrishtadyumna, who will kill Drona and hence avenge
Drupada’s humiliation. Along with Dhrishtadyamna, Draupadi too
is born out of the fire. According to Bhattacharya, the
purpose of Draupadi’s birth is proclaimed in a celestial
announcement when she steps out of the fire. The announcement
claims that “this lovely, dark...lady will destroy all
Kshatriyas” (20). Therefore, her position in the narrative is
extremely important for the outcome of the text.
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Of course, the Mahabharata war is a result of many incidents,
but Draupadi’s vastraharan is one of the most important reasons
for it. Draupadi is, therefore, a very important character in
the epic and there have been a few retellings of the epic from
her perspective too, like Pratibha Ray’s Yajnaseni and Chitra
Banerjee Diwakaruni’s Palace of Illusions.
In the two primary texts chosen for this research, the authors
have portrayed Draupadi in different ways; the main difference
here is with respect to who narrates her story. In Ajaya,
Neelakantan’s omniscient, third-person narrator tells the
reader the story of her swayamvara and marriage. On the other
hand, in Kane’s novel, the reader can see Draupadi from two
perspectives; one is through Uruvi’s eyes and the other
through her own, when she relates the incidents that occur in
the sabha.
One of the most important incidents concerning Draupadi is her
swayamvara. Draupadi’s swayamvara is a test of the strength and
skills of her suitors. They had to shoot an arrow in the eye
of a fish rotating above a vessel of water while looking at
the reflection of the fish in the water. In Ajaya, Neelakantan
introduces an important debate surrounding the idea of a
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swayamvara. Balarama speaks about the tradition, in the novel,
when he says that “in ancient times, the swayamvara had no
contest. The maiden chose her husband from many suitors...Only
the woman’s choice mattered” (320). But, Draupadi has no
choice because her father wants “only the best for [his]
daughter” and he “prefer[s] her husband be a great warrior”
(320). Therefore, she has to marry whoever wins the contest.
But, this too is not very simple. Draupadi rejects Karna as a
suitor because he belongs to the suta caste. Does she really
believe in the caste system or is this rejection only because
she has to follow a system determined by patriarchy? Her
decision to not marry Karna is voiced in a “soft whisper” and
when Karna looks up at her in shock and anger he sees “a
sadness that was even deeper than his own” (322). Neelakantan
seems to want to point out that Draupadi, if given a choice,
would not have rejected Karna at all.
Kane also writes about her rejection of Karna by saying that
“the Panchala princess had been reluctant to break the norm
and accept him as her husband” (133). She also writes that
Draupadi had sacrificed her love in order to save her brother
who would have fought with Karna, and would have been killed,
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if she had accepted Karna as her husband (134). Therefore,
both the authors write about Draupadi’s rejection of Karna in
a way that states that her decision was taken only by keeping
in mind the existing patriarchal norms of the society with
respect to caste and also with respect to how a woman,
especially a princess coming from the higher Kshatriya caste,
was expected to behave. These accepted norms give a lot of
emphasis to endogamy and hence, Draupadi’s marriage with Karna
would have been wholly unacceptable, as Uruvi’s is in Kane’s
novel. Endogamy is still practiced in society too, Chakravarti
gives examples of marital advertisements in newspapers to
prove this point (146), and women are still expected to think
about what is acceptable and what is not when choosing a
husband, if they are given a choice at all. Therefore, caste
and gender are intrinsically related, especially with respect
to marriage customs.
After her marriage, Draupadi goes home with the Pandavas and
in a “momentous decision” taken by Kunti, the “course of
history” is changed forever (Neelakantan, 329). Kunti asks
Arjuna to share what he has brought with all his brothers and
thus, Draupadi is married off to all five Pandavas.
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Neelakantan expresses her anger over this by saying that “they
were discussing her yet she had no voice in deciding her own
future. She was just ‘it’, a thing without heart and feelings;
to be bartered, shared, fought over, and pawned when its use
was over” (330). Draupadi seems to echo the sentiments of many
generations of women who did not, and still do not, have a
choice in matters concerning their own lives. In Ajaya too,
Draupadi argues against marrying all the Pandavas but with the
intervention of Krishna she resigns herself to her future, “in
the best tradition of Indian wives” (331). The five Pandavas
share a common wife and she is not expected to protest. Here
the question of control over a woman’s body is brought into
focus. Draupadi herself has no control over her body but is
forced to wed five men, not only because of patriarchal norms
but also because of her mother-in-law, Kunti, who does not
want her sons to be divided for any reason.
Yudhishtira says to Draupadi, in Ajaya, “you are ours now and
we will protect you until death claims us all” (332). But,
Draupadi is called “Nathavati Anathavat, suffering the agony
of a woman who had five husbands but with no one to protect
her, who is alone and uncared for” (Kane, 130). These too are
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established gender roles, the woman as weak and the man as her
protector. But, Draupadi herself reverses this role when she
saves her “hapless” husbands “like a boat” when they “were
drowning in a sea of sorrows” (130), after the dice game.
The dice game is where Yudhishtira gambles away the Pandavas’
inheritance, the Pandavas themselves and Draupadi too. It is
after the dice game that the Pandavas and Draupadi are sent
into exile for 13 years. The dice game is also the episode
where Draupadi is humiliated because of her vastraharan. This
episode of the epic has been written by Kane in Draupadi’s
voice, as she is narrating the incidents to Uruvi.
She narrates the incidents with a very direct tone, not
leaving anything out. Her narration itself is like an act of
defiance against the humiliation that she has faced. In this
incident too the question of the woman as weak and the man as
strong comes through. Draupadi, who is fighting for her own
dignity, becomes the oppressed victim, while all the men in
the assembly, who remain silent through it all, become the
perpetrators of the crime. But, it is still Draupadi who
emerges strong and dignified, instead of the men. Her
narration shows her humiliation, but also her strength and
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determination. She is disgusted with her husbands and with all
the elders of the Kuru clan. She leaves the hall with her
“head high, even though [her] honour was in shambles” (131).
As Draupadi’s swayamvara and the incident of the vastraharan show,
the patriarchal society was in complete control of women’s
lives. But, at the same time, Draupadi does not conform to
established gender roles by quietly accepting everything as
her fate, but fights for her dignity. Also, Draupadi, as a
mother, is not given the same importance as Draupadi as a
wife. Here she is subverting the value accorded to a woman as
a mother in patriarchal society. Neither of the two texts
chosen mentions her as a motherly figure.
Kane’s writing, through Draupadi herself, makes the narrative
stronger and brings out the issue of how gender constructs are
not always fixed or stable. Draupadi is not represented as a
woman who is weak but as someone who is “ready to fight back”
because that is the only way she can live. The idea of
vengeance is what drives her forward. But this incident does
not deter her from remaining a devoted wife, a pativrata, to her
five husbands. Therefore, her portrayal is that of a woman who
is determined to get justice but at the same time, who does
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not shirk her duties and her role as a wife. But it is still
Sita, the wife who suffers quietly, who remains the ‘ideal’
woman. Draupadi, with her anger and need for revenge, is never
someone that an Indian girl is taught to emulate. Draupadi is
a woman who has the agency to fight for herself, even though
it is true that this agency is not available in all spheres of
her life. This makes her a character with whom many
contemporary women can empathize. Women have more freedom to
choose and speak out for themselves, but this does not mean a
complete departure from patriarchy.
With an increasing number of retellings, especially retellings
from Draupadi’s perspective, authors attempt to bring out the
qualities of a sense of justice, dignity and a determination
to fight back that need to be emulated by contemporary Indian
women. Mythology is being retold to highlight the changes that
are required, but might not have happened yet.
Kunti:
Kunti is the wife of Pandu and the mother of the Pandavas. She
plays a very important part in the Mahabharata as the mother of
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the five Pandavas and Karna, and as the mother-in-law of
Draupadi. It is her abandonment of Karna that causes him to be
brought up in the house of a suta and to live as a suta his
entire life. It is Kunti’s wish that Draupadi marry all the
five Pandavas so that they remain undivided.
Karve writes, in Yuganta, that “every man in her [Kunti’s] life
contributed to her unhappiness” (29). Her father, Shurasena,
her adoptive father, Kuntibhoja, her husband, Pandu and even
her sons, the Pandavas, were all responsible, in one way or
another, in making her life unhappy. Her entire life is
defined by her relationships to these men and it is controlled
by them.
Her father gives her away to his childless friend, Kuntibhoja,
who marries her to Pandu. But, despite of marrying the king of
Hastinapura, her life is not a simple one. Pandu retires to
the forest, with Kunti and his other wife Madri. Pandu and
Madri both die in the forest and Kunti is left widowed with
the Pandavas. She returns to Hastinapura and a life-long feud
begins between the Pandavas and the Kauravas over the throne
of Hastinapura which ends in the Kurukshetra war.
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The relationship that defines her life the most is the one
that she has with the Pandavas, as their mother. Unlike her
daughter-in-law, Draupadi whose role as a wife is highlighted
in the text, it is Kunti’s role as a mother that becomes
significant. Motherhood is considered to be one of the most
important stages in a woman’s life, so much so that “a woman
is a woman only if she is a mother” (Jain 285). In Indian
culture the mother is glorified as a woman who will go to any
lengths to ensure the happiness of her sons. Kunti becomes an
example of such a mother, even allowing a tribal woman and her
five sons to die in order to save the lives of her own sons
and herself. On the other hand, she is also the unwed mother
who abandons her child as soon as he is born because of the
social stigma associated with it.
In Kane’s novel the reader sees Kunti, through Uruvi’s eyes,
as a loving mother and a woman who has lived with dignity
through all the sorrows in her life. But, Uruvi’s perspective
changes drastically when she learns that Kunti is, in fact,
Karna’s mother and that she has extracted two promises from
Karna-to spare Arjuna and to use one weapon only once in the
battle. Uruvi knows, and so does Kunti, that these promises
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will bring about the death of Karna. Uruvi accuses Kunti of
never having loved Karna and only acknowledging him now in
order to save her other sons. She says to Kunti that “you have
so cleverly used the fact of motherhood as a political weapon
to guarantee a win for your Pandava sons” (259).
The Mahabharata has many women who are central to the narrative
of the epic and who contribute to the outcome of the war thus
subverting accepted patriarchal norms. Amba vows to kill
Bhishma and is reborn as Shikhandi in order to fulfil her vow,
Gandhari’s decision to blindfold herself is seen as an act of
resistance, Draupadi’s anger and vows for revenge are what
drive the Pandavas to war. Kunti is also extremely important
to the outcome of the epic. Through Kunti, Kane highlights the
role of the mother and the power that a mother has over her
sons. She uses Uruvi’s narration to question Kunti’s behaviour
as a mother. Kunti doesn’t offer much in the way of
explanation when Uruvi berates her about abandoning Karna and
only acknowledging him for her own selfish needs. Does Kane,
then, want to show that Kunti is accepting the accusations
fired at her?
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Uruvi says to Kunti “You were the mother who tricked her sons
to marry one woman. And you are the mother-in-law who allowed
her daughter-in-law to be labelled a whore, while you
maintained a spotless reputation. Why, even in this hour, you
are ready to use your daughter-in-law as his ultimate
temptation. You are ready to corrupt anyone for your goal!”
(264). But, what is Kunti’s goal? Isn’t it because she wants
her sons to be the rulers of Hastinapura that she is going to
such great lengths to ensure their victory? Is she subverting
the ideals of motherhood then?
Kunti’s silence against Uruvi’s tirade is Kane’s perspective,
in a way, of how Kunti would react to these accusations that
have been debated on by scholars and the readers of the
Mahabharata for generations. Her silence might be taken as
acceptance, but does that necessarily make her a bad mother?
Kunti’s decision of abandoning Karna was influenced by the
patriarchal society she lived in. She was a Kshatriya princess
and for a woman in her position, maintaining her ‘purity’
before marriage was of the utmost importance. Other decisions
in life like returning to Hastinapura with the princes,
allowing a poor woman and her sons to die for them, asking
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them to share a wife were all supposedly for the benefit of
her sons. Kane’s portrayal of Kunti is of a woman who is
struggling with the decisions that she has taken but is,
nonetheless, strong enough to face the consequences.
In Ajaya, on the other hand, Neelakantan portrays Kunti as a
very manipulative and cunning woman who knows exactly what she
wants and knows how to get it. She allies herself with priests
like Dhaumya in order to control the course of events leading
up to the war. She addresses herself as a “poor widow” and
uses her position to gain the sympathy of the courtiers (152).
It is she who adds drugs to the sweets served to a nishada
woman and her sons so that their corpses can be found later in
the house of lac, while the Pandavas and she escape. Here, the
question of caste too becomes important. The woman who is
killed belongs to the nishada caste and is hence at the lowest
rungs of the caste hierarchy. The woman is marginalized due
to, both, caste and gender. It is necessary to understand that
though Kunti is part of a patriarchal society, she is an upper
caste woman and therefore, is privileged to a certain extent,
a privilege that the unnamed nishada woman does not have. She
is marginalized on the basis of her gender not only because of
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upper caste men but also because of upper caste women, like
Kunti. The interaction of caste and gender is observed here.
Kunti, in Ajaya, does not think twice about killing the family
of nishadas. She backs her decision by saying that “it was His
will that this mother and her five sons arrived to act as
decoys for our ‘death’...Nothing is considered wrong if it is
in self-preservation” As a mother, she seems to only think
about the welfare of her sons and is determined that they will
be the rulers of Hastinapura.
Therefore, Kunti’s portrayal in the two novels is different
and her position as a mother is questioned by both the texts,
but especially by Kane’s Uruvi. Kane seems to abide by the
notion of a mother as loving, caring and all-suffering for her
children. But at the same time she questions Kunti’s decision
of abandoning her first-born son only because of a fear of
society. This stigma, of being an unwed mother, is still one
of the major concerns faced by women in India, especially
upper-caste women. On the other hand, unwed mothers from the
lower castes might not necessarily face such a stigma. A
report in The Hindu says “historically and even today, many
unwed mothers are Dalit or tribal women, who have been forced
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by an unequal caste system to be sexually available for upper
caste men as their accepted destiny. Their children from such
encounters contribute to the cheap labour on which India’s
economy runs. ” (thehindu.com). Therefore, control over the
body and sexuality of a woman is also an intrinsic part of
caste politics and not only gender.
Neelakantan, on the other hand, is portraying the plight of a
single mother in a patriarchal society and the lengths to
which she has to go to in order to protect her sons and
herself. Single mothers and unwed mothers are marginalized in
similar ways because of the firm belief that a woman needs a
man in her life in order for it to be complete. Both the
authors highlight the role of the mother in the lives of her
sons. The Pandavas do not dare to defy her under any
circumstances and that is how a mother is supposed to be.
Indian culture, portrayed through Hindi cinema and TV shows,
also defines such an image of motherhood. The mother is an
‘ideal’ mother when she always has the best interests of her
sons in mind, irrespective of the effects on others and when
the sons are always ready to do as she asks.
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Kunti’s role as a woman is also coloured by the fact that she
produces heirs through the process of niyoga. Therefore,
biologically, the Pandavas are not Pandu’s sons. The concept
of niyoga allows a woman to produce heirs from another man,
with the permission of the husband, if the husband is unable
to do so for some reason. According to Bhattacharya, Kunti
does not want to give birth to sons who are not Pandu’s but it
is on the insistence of her husband that she does so (‘One-in-
Herself’ 25). Therefore, here too the question of control of
women’s sexuality is brought forward. A woman’s main role is
in reproduction, to produce heirs and this aspect of her role
cannot be compromised upon. It is not surprising to hear
instances of marriages ending because the couple is unable to
have children or a man being married a second time because his
first wife could not bear children. Therefore, the role of
woman in reproduction, in carrying forward the name of the
family, is of the utmost importance and affects her position
in the house.
Kunti’s relationship to her daughter-in-law, Draupadi, is also
important when considering gender roles. Kunti’s insistence
leads to Draupadi marrying five men, therefore, Kunti too has
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a part in controlling the body of her daughter-in-law.
Patriarchal notions of control over a woman’s body, and life,
are practiced through another woman. Chakravarti writes about
the compliance of women which goes a long way in cementing the
patriarchal system. She writes that “while women lose in
relation to their own menfolk, within a patriarchal situation,
they derive certain benefits from the system of which they are
a part” (144). Therefore, the patriarchal system is “a complex
structure which both expects compliance from women and grants
them a degree of power” (147-148).
The issues of motherhood, especially single motherhood,
control over the body of a woman, her choice in matters
concerning her life are contemporary concerns addressed
through the character of Kunti in these retellings.
Gandhari:
Gandhari is the princess of Gandhar, married to King
Dhritarashtra and mother to the Kauravas. She is married to
Dhritarashtra on the insistence of Bhishma, but she is unaware
that Dhritarashtra is blind. When she realises this, she ties
a blindfold around her eyes and vows to never remove it. This
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act can be interpreted either as an act of defiance, or as
Gandhari proving herself to be a pativrata by not allowing
herself the pleasure of sight that her husband does not have.
It can be questioned because it can also be interpreted that
she chooses the role of a wife as more important over that of
a mother. But, in the retellings Gandhari is considered with
respect to her role as a mother.
In Kane’s novel, Gandhari does not appear as a major character
but the readers are given a glimpse of her through Uruvi. Her
portrayal is only from Uruvi’s perspective and hence it is
also coloured with her prejudices. Uruvi talks about Gandhari
to Bhanumati, Duryodhana’s wife. According to Uruvi, Gandhari
is not a “devoted wife” but “a masochistic person of such
stubborn resolve that she deprived her husband of seeing the
world through her eyes” and “she remains blind to the faults
of her sons and refuses to perceive the enormity of what’s
happening around her” (206). She does not yield the influence
in her children’s lives that Kunti does for the Pandavas.
Therefore, their roles as mothers are also very different.
Gandhari, according to Uruvi, has allowed her children to
“grow up wild, unrestrained and thoroughly spoilt.” The
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Kauravas do not heed her word and she “is not a figure of
maternal kindness nor is she the guide, philosopher or the
strict disciplinarian a mother should be” (208). Therefore,
here, Kane is differentiating between the two women by saying
that Kunti is the ‘ideal’ mother while Gandhari is not.
In Ajaya, Neelakantan portrays Gandhari as a woman who has been
forced to marry a blind man and who, even though she wants to,
cannot have the kind of influence she wants on her children.
She is unable to stop her brother Shakuni from manipulating
her sons. In Neelakanatan’s novel, Shakuni is one of the main
perpetrators of everything going on in the Kuru court. But
even with interventions from Gandhari, Shakuni continues to
interfere in the politics at Hastinapura. Therefore, Gandhari
does not have any say in what happens in her own family.
Neither was she given a choice in marriage, nor is she an
influential mother or sister.
But, it is necessary to understand that Neelakantan does not
make Gandhari entirely passive. In the prelude to the novel,
Bhishma comes to Gandhari’s chamber to take her away to
Hastinapura after the Gandhara army has been routed. She
welcomes him with an “icy chill to her voice” and carries
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“herself with...dignity and composure.” She accepts her fate
but makes it known, through her behaviour, that she is not
happy with it. She is described as “the most powerful woman in
the entire sub-continent and the real power behind the blind
King” (138). She insists that Shakuni go back to Gandhara so
that her husband and sons can rule the kingdom in peace.
Gandhari is an example of a woman who has spent her entire
life within the confines of patriarchy. Both Kunti and
Gandhari have had their lives decided for them. But it is
through motherhood that the main difference in their lives
becomes apparent. Kane questions Kunti’s conflicting
motherhood but only after portraying her as the ideal mother.
On the other hand, she doesn’t give a voice to Gandhari at all
and only focuses on the fact that she could not become a
mother like Kunti is. Therefore, the authors attempt to define
motherhood through these characters.
Another important point when considering the character of
Gandhari is that she does not belong to Hastinapura or its
surrounding kingdoms but is from Gandhara, a land to the west
of Hastinapura, according to Neelakanatan. Therefore, her
position is that of a foreign woman and someone who is not a
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part of the caste or gender system of the kingdom she has
married into. But that does not mean that she does not have to
follow the rules of her adopted country. Her position as a
wife and mother, as a woman, is still within the patriarchal
structures of society.
Uruvi:
Uruvi is Karna’s second wife, a princess who chooses to marry
a sutaputra. But, it is important to remember that Uruvi is, in
fact, a fictional character. Kane says, in an interview, that
“through Uruvi [she] could validate some of [her] arguments”
(Sruti’s BookBlog, 2013).
Jai Arjun Singh, writing for the Indian Quarterly, says “Even
though Uruvi is part of Karna’s life and is affected by his
actions, she can be viewed as a sutradhaar figure who is
essentially outside the narrative, a stand-in for the
author.....One might say that what she [Kane] has attempted—
consciously or otherwise—is a form of literary and social
criticism, by revisiting the story as a 21st-century person
and bringing modern morality to it, and doing this not from a
safe distance but as an insider” (indianquarterly.com).
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Therefore, Uruvi’s narrative becomes very contemporary and
through Uruvi, Kane brings forward various debates with
respect to the epic. From the very beginning of the novel the
reader sees Uruvi as a headstrong young woman who is not
afraid to fight for what she wants. She knows that marrying
Karna, a social outcast because of his low caste, will change
her life forever but she is willing to take this decision and
she sticks to it.
As a woman she is a very important character because all the
incidents are narrated from a woman’s perspective. These
narrations come with Uruvi’s, and in a way Kane’s, prejudices
against many characters like Bhishma, Kunti, Duryodhana,
Gandhari etc. Uruvi is placed diametrically opposite to
Draupadi and their stories converge in the final Kurukshetra
war.
The very first glaring difference between the lives of these
two women is their swayamvara. While Draupadi has to marry the
man who wins the contest arranged by her father, and hence has
no choice at all in the matter, Uruvi has complete freedom to
choose a man she loves. Draupadi marries Arjuna and rejects
Karna, acting according to what was expected of her by her
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family and by society as a whole. Uruvi, on the other hand,
does the exact opposite by choosing to marry Karna over
Arjuna. Kane does not idealize this situation by making
Uruvi’s choice easier. In fact, Uruvi has a difficult time
convincing her parents to accept her decision. She has been
portrayed as a very intelligent and outspoken woman who can
argue fiercely for her decisions. She even goes on to declare
that “if I [Uruvi] can’t have him, I would rather stay
unmarried” (18). Her father faces a dilemma that many Indian
fathers face even today, of leaving their daughters unmarried,
and Uruvi’s parents reluctantly agree to her choice. But, it
causes uproar at her swayamvara nonetheless, with everyone
drawing out swords against the pratilomic marriage. Uruvi’s
decision remains unchanged but the cost of her decision is
that she goes from being a loved and respected princess to a
social pariah.
Another important way in which she is different from Draupadi
is in the fact that Draupadi was born from the feelings of
hate and revenge, and these were the emotions that surrounded
her life. Uruvi was a loved and pampered daughter who was
allowed the freedom of learning medicine, horse riding,
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painting and who was allowed to develop as a woman outside of
the patriarchal confines of the society.
This is not to say that this patriarchal society did not
affect Uruvi’s life. Marrying Karna was a momentous decision
for her and it led to drastic changes in her life, not only
with respect to her social position but also her role as a
woman and a wife. For a woman who had everything she had
wished for when growing up, becoming the second wife of a
sutaputra brought many challenges. Uruvi’s marginalization is
based on the fact that she marries into a lower-caste and
therefore, her social position changes. Women who entered into
pratilomic marriages were excommunicated from the society,
according to Chakravarti. That is exactly what happens with
Uruvi too. She realizes that her relationships with people
have changed after her marriage into a lower caste. It is not
only her relations with those from the upper-castes that
change but Karna’s suta family also takes some time to
understand her, especially his brother Shona. She has to
overcome a transition from being an upper caste woman to a
lower caste woman, a change that has been shown by Kane to be
difficult.
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Another important change was that she had to share her husband
with Vrushali, Karna’s first wife and this changes the
dynamics of their relationship. She sees herself as an
intruder in their marriage and is very conscious of any
reaction from her co-wife (46). Her relationship with Draupadi
too is coloured by the fact that she is aware of Draupadi’s
love for Karna. Therefore, as a woman and as a wife she is
always in a shadow of doubt about where she stands.
Uruvi’s most important role in the novel is as Karna’s wife,
as his “friend, companion, and above all, his conscience
keeper” (Sruti’s BookBlog). Uruvi’s relationship with Karna is
different than Vrushali’s because she comes from a background
which allows her to think differently. She is the one who
defends Karna but also the one who insists on leaving him
after she is made aware of his role in Draupadi’s vastraharan.
But, it is only because of her royal upbringing that she has
the privilege of taking such a decision, Kane does not portray
Vrushali doing something like that. In fact, Vrushali is
almost silent on the entire episode. Therefore, caste also
plays an important role in allowing Uruvi to take this
decision.
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On the other hand, it could be interpreted that Vrushali is a
pativrata when she does not leave her husband in his most trying
times, while Uruvi goes to Pukeya. Therefore, Uruvi’s
character as a contemporary woman is complicated, especially
when it comes to her role as a wife. Even her modern-day
outlook on life does not keep her away from the patriarchal
society.
The fact that Kane had to create a fictional character in
order to put her views across and in order to interpret the
epic in another way can be taken to mean that she saw the
other gendered characters, like Vrushali, to be limiting in
what she wanted to put across. It could be interpreted as a
way to highlight the changes in gender roles too. The
contradictions in the characters of Draupadi and Uruvi clearly
mark them as being from different times, even though they
occupy the same space in the context of the novel. Uruvi’s
contemporary outlook on life is different than that of
Draupadi and closer to the women of today. But, eventually,
both are a part of patriarchal societies. Changes in gender
margins are a slow process and the role of the patriarchal
society in defining these margins cannot be ignored.
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Conclusion:
The chosen retellings use characters from the epic to
highlight some of the changes that have occurred with respect
to gender, especially in the portrayal of Draupadi and Uruvi.
On the other hand, the authors have used these characters to
point out that the gender system in India has not evolved in
major ways and continues to be a cause for concern in Indian
society. That is not to say that gender margins have not
changed at all. There have been changes as is apparent from
the history provided and also from the characterization in the
retellings. Women have a better agency for voicing their
opinions. But, women continue to be defined by their roles-as
daughter, wife, and mother-in patriarchal society. Their
relationships with other women too are within the confines of
patriarchy, Kunti and Draupadi’s or Uruvi and Draupadi’s
relationships are examples of the same. It is also important
to remember that the relation of gender with caste cannot be
ignored. Gender margins change as caste margins change and the
two are very closely related.
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CONCLUSION
“The Mahabharata is the creation and expression not of a
single individual mind, but of the mind of a nation; it is the
poem of itself written by a whole people...the whole poem has
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been built like a vast national temple unrolling slowly its
immense and complex idea from chamber to chamber..”
-Shri Aurobindo (qtd. in Lothspeich, 75)
The above quote highlights the extent to which the Mahabharata
is a part of culture in India and in the minds of its people.
Its various characters and episodes make it a treasure trove
for authors working on retelling the epic because, as Lakshmi
Bandlamudi writes, “the characters are simply seen as
prototypes and moulds in which humanity is cast and hence
their validity is understood as timeless” (105).
This research has focused on some of the issues related to
caste and gender in two retellings of the epic. The caste
issues discussed include the basis of hierarchization of
castes, caste mobility, and unequal opportunities because of
caste. While some of the gender issues discussed include the
agency available to women in a patriarchal society, the
woman’s role as a mother and wife and her position in the
patriarchy especially with respect to other women.
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The research has attempted to determine if the epic and its
characters have been moulded to represent contemporary reality
with respect to the issues discussed in the preceding
chapters. Dipankar Gupta, while writing about the caste
system, says that “a quick reflection will at once reveal how
much at odds the conceptual view....is with the dynamics of
contemporary Indian reality” (56). The same might be said for
the gender constructs in society too. Gender roles, too, have
evolved and are evolving. Therefore, the margins of caste and
gender too have been altered. It is these changes that this
research has attempted to study.
It has been observed, through this research, that authors in
the twenty-first century have discussed current issues of
caste and gender with the help of the epic and its many
characters. Anand Neelakantan’s Ajaya is based in a society
divided by a rigid caste system, but at the same time it is a
society which has individuals trying to subvert this system.
Kavita Kane too highlights issues of caste through Karna’s Wife,
but her novel focuses on relationships and family ties more
than the society. Nonetheless, both the authors address issues
of caste-Karna and Ashwatthama are men who adopt the lifestyle
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of another caste, thus practicing caste mobilisation, Vidura
is accepting of his lower caste and his behaviour is almost
compliant with his subordination, Eklavya has been given an
agency by Neelakantan to play an important role in the
narrative, Duryodhana and Uruvi are characters who are
privileged with respect to their caste but their position in
the caste system is also complicated.
Gender issues too have been dealt with by both the authors.
Changing gender roles have been discussed through some of the
main characters in the epic. Draupadi’s role as a wife has
been highlighted by both the authors while also discussing her
relationship with her mother-in-law Kunti. Kunti herself is an
important character in both the retellings and her position as
a mother and a wife have both been dealt with. The authors
have attempted to distinguish between Kunti and Gandhari’s
roles as mothers in the narrative. Uruvi’s role as the upper
caste wife of a sutaputra has also been highlighted. Therefore,
the questions of motherhood, women’s compliance to patriarchal
structures, caste and gender relations, and control over
women’s bodies are some of the issues discussed through these
retellings.
106
The main aim of this research was to determine if and how,
margins of caste and gender have evolved and how authors of
contemporary retellings of the Mahabharata have used the epic
and its characters to portray these changes. The notion of
retelling is important here because contemporary authors are
using an epic whose origins are debatable and are
incorporating present-day social issues within the narrative.
Robyn McCallum and John Stephens write that in order for a
text “to be a retelling a text must exist in a relationship to
some kind of source, which we will refer to as the ‘pre-
text’...” (4). But in the case of the Mahabharata it is
difficult to point to a “pre-text” because there are many
versions, translations, and retellings available. Therefore,
authors can be said to have greater freedom for
reinterpretation and retelling.
The authors that have been chosen for this research are Kavita
Kane and Anand Neelakantan. There are many other authors, some
of them have already been mentioned, who have retold the epic
in order to highlight contemporary issues. Perspective
retellings especially focus on individual characters and their
issues. For example, Chitra Banerjee Diwakaruni’s Palace of
107
Illusions is from Draupadi’s perspective and hence gender forms an
important part of the narrative. Shivaji Sawant’s Mrityunjaya is
from the perspective of Karna and highlights important issues
of caste and identity. Novels like Devdutt Pattanaik’s The
Pregnant King highlight gender relations and transsexual and
gender-ending characters in the epics. Therefore, authors
continue to remould the epic to suit their needs of expression
and representation.
The primary sources considered in this research were chosen
because they provide an agency to marginalized characters,
such as Eklavya and Vidura, and hence subvert the previous
versions and retellings, at least to a certain extent. This
subversion is an indication of the changing margins of caste
and gender. Through these retellings the authors have
attempted to redefine the margins of caste and gender with
respect to the issues that have been considered here. There
are other issues too, relating to caste and gender, whose
study has not been done in this research and therefore, those,
cannot be commented upon.
The chosen primary sources also have contrasting narrators,
with one being an omniscient third-person narrative and the
108
other a selective narrative through the perspective of only
one character, Uruvi. Therefore, as McCallum and Stephens
write, “two versions of a story involving the same characters,
settings and events can differ substantially in their
implications or significances” (ix). The two retellings
portray some common characters but since their perspectives
are different from each other, these portrayals too are not
always similar.
It is also necessary to remember that the primary sources are
a part of Indian English fiction. There have been many
retellings of the epic, usually included in mythological
fiction, in the past decade and it can be said that “Indian
mythology has become the most marketable segment of India’s
English-language book market” (latitude. blogs.nytimes.com).
The increasing focus on retellings of the epics and
mythological fiction has been explained by one of the most
popular mythological fiction writers in India today, Amish
Tripathi, when he says that “[The trend] is a result of our
increasing self-confidence as a nation. I think that [earlier
it] wasn’t market driven. It was supply-side driven. The
English publishing industry itself was perhaps more geared
109
towards catering to the western market, explaining India to
the western market rather than finding topics which sell in
the India market” (blog.reuters.com). Therefore, the reasons
for a surge in retellings might range from a need to
understand our past to representing contemporary reality
through mythology to economic and political purposes.
Limitations:
The scope of the research is limited to the two retellings
chosen and it does not take into consideration many other
retellings that have been published in the past few years.
Also, only a few of the issues, mentioned above, related to
caste and gender margins have been studied here. Caste and
gender debates are vast and varied and it is not possible to
consider all of them within the scope of this research. Caste
and gender also need to be studied together because they
interact in society. This research does look at this
interaction but not in a detailed way.
This research has studied only a few characters from the array
of characters portrayed in the retellings. Many characters
110
like Bhishma, Takshaka, Shakuni, Jara, Mayasura, Bhanumati,
Vrushali, Krishna etc. have not been studied.
The notion of the Mahabharata as a myth also needs to be taken
into account. The introduction mentions myth theories by
Mircea Eliade and Bronislaw Malinowski and these can be used
to study the aspect of the epic as mythology.
Future Prospects:
The limitations of the research can be developed into studies
for further research. There have been many retellings of the
epic, from different perspectives, in recent years and it is
possible to study these retellings and the characterizations
in them. Authors have given voice to many marginalized
characters and it would be very interesting to see how these
characters have been portrayed and what issues have been
brought to light through them.
Caste and gender in the retellings can be studied in greater
detail and other issues, for example the relation of identity
with caste and gender or the role of caste and gender in state
politics, can be studied. Characters through which these
issues are discussed can be chosen for further research. This
111
research has focused on some women characters in the
retellings of the epic but gender studies also includes the
study of masculinity, its relation to femininity, issues of
the third-sex etc. and these issues can also be studied in
further research.
The relation between myth and society can also be considered
for future study. The retellings are a way of reinventing
mythology and these retellings reflect changing societal
norms. Therefore, the study of the retellings as a reinvention
of mythology is another area of study that can be considered.
It would be interesting to look at the notion of “regeneration
of time” given by Eliade in order to understand the continuing
interest in mythology and its use in literature.
112
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