Valmiki’s Women: Exploring the hero in antagonists

Chandni S Chandel

‘Valmiki’s Women’ is a relatively different read, one where the wicked show streaks of heroism. Author Anand Neelakantan celebrates love and life through the eyes of detestable women characters like Manthara and Kaikeyi, besides other lesser-known characters such as Lord Rama’s sister Shanta, from the epic Ramayana.

Giving a different perspective to Hindu beliefs and convictions are five diverse stories that stir our morality. One of these portrays Kaikeyi as a strong-willed revolutionary character. King Dasharatha is giving away Shanta, his daughter from Rani Kaushalya, to another king for a sacrificial feat that could have claimed Shanta’s life. “Tell your father you don’t want to be adopted, you are heir to the Ikshavaku Vamsa. The throne belongs to you!” says Kaikeyi. In a hugely patriarchial society, it would require a woman of substance to say this to her step-daughter. The author depicts Kaikeyi as a pillar of strength for the young girl.

Neelakantan also chronicles the life of Manthara, a commoner with a deformed body. Poor, ugly, despised and abused, her life changes overnight because a king wants to stay away from sexual desires in the event of his wife leaving him and, as a caretaker for his little kids, wishes to employ the ugliest woman in his kingdom to do the kindest deed.

Writing about King Dasharatha trying to woo Kaikeyi, the author notes: “The insincerity of his words and the forced humility riled Manthara. In Kaikeya (the western kingdom to which Kaikeyi and Manthara belonged), men and women spoke their mind and didn’t couch their words in sweetness. Maybe, as Kaikeyi said, this was the culture of the plains. One could fall at a servant’s feet without any reverence to the gesture, or speak of oneself as a humble servant while actually being full of pride, with an ego as fragile as a bubble. Words, hollow and ornate, came easily to Dasharatha.”

The book delineates social evolution — how any form of civility is initially considered a foreign concept, but gradually transforms into social folkways, mores and taboos. A mythical character, Subahu does not want to perform the last rites of his mother. He wants Nature to take its own course by letting the body decay, ‘become food for the creatures of the forest and mingle with the trees and soil’. At the time, it was the norm, but a few years later, newly civilised men wanted him to burn the body.

In another incident, when Sita leaves Ayodhya after Rama questions her chastity, she meets Soorpanakha and asks her if she feels any bitterness for Lakshman. Soorpanakha responds, “It’s not a sin to feel bitter, but one has to emerge from it… Life will give us a second chance; it has to.” Sita prods further, “What chance has it given you so far?” Soorpanakha, originally christened Meenakshi by her mother, responds, “Every breath, every moment, it gives me a chance; it asks me to choose, and I choose beauty… I see beauty in everything, and feel wonderment every moment.”

Meaningful fiction, but not meant for the uninitiated.