‘Footnotes to the Mahabharata’: A women-centric narrative of the Mahabharata

In this pithy collection, K Srilata’s poems serve as footnotes to the ancient ‘Mahabharata’, whose tales of love, desire and war continue to be available to us in various narratives, languages, genres and voices. Srilata’s poems allow us to revisit women’s lives in the ‘Mahabharata’, reminding us of the contemporaneity of ancient myths and stories. The speaking women in these poems display a fierce intelligence through pain, anguish and pleasure.

The ‘Mahabharata’, written in patriarchal times, firmly ensconced women’s lives in the interstices of power during peace and war. Male lineage, disrupted by the deaths of Shantanu’s sons and Bhishma’s oath renouncing conjugality and kingship, remains fraught in the original text, although the contestations to power continue unabated. In these poems, women protagonists articulate their desires and sorrows through powerful lyrics. Drawing inspiration from Bhyrappa’s ‘Parva’, a retelling of the ‘Mahabharata’, the poems are modelled on ‘Agananuru’ and ‘Purananuru’ forms of Sangam poetry written in Tamil.

Srilata’s experiments with haikai poetry (a short poetic form comprising the haiku, the senryu and the haibun) flesh out the intimate thoughts and conversations of the five powerful wives of Kuru Vansh in a poetic tradition that for long sustained male voices. Alli, Draupadi, Gandhari and Kunti are from mainstream royal families, while Hidimbi belongs to a forest tribe. The poems work exceedingly well as all women speak aloud to themselves or to a friend, lover, or husband.

Alli, the first speaker, belongs to Madurai and remains unknown in the abridged, televised or original versions of the epic. She is a foundling, raised by the Pandyan king and queen. Arjuna seduces Alli as part of his masculine privilege and is aided by Krishna in this subterfuge. Alli voices her shock, pain and anger, choosing to reign in Madurai as warrior queen. She does not travel to Indraprastha as one of Arjuna’s trophy wives, despite all the spite and chauvinism directed at her. These are the hooks and riffs that Srilata’s poems provide, along with a compelling foreword and originary history, as women’s voices, hitherto submerged, occupy the foreground.

Hidimbi’s brother is killed and she is claimed by Bhima. Despite her supportive role in the Pandava household in the forest, she is left behind while pregnant with Ghatotkacha. Cruelly abandoned, she raises her son and counsels him, continues to love Bhima, speaking highly of him, and accepts that her son will be collateral damage. This is Hidimba’s lot. Yet she speaks truth to power, indicting Kunti and Yudhishtra for not accepting her as family and Krishna for his observation that her son is a demon who must be destroyed. The reader shudders at the xenophobia, racism and insensitivity as Hidimbi quietly rips the bandages around the machinations of power. Unsupported and solitary, she reveals shrewd intelligence and dignity in the face of anguish.

Draupadi, Kunti and Gandhari, princesses not loved enough by their natal families, are intelligent and articulate. Kunti laughs at Pandu’s empty boasts and acknowledges her forbidden infatuation with Marut, while Gandhari and Draupadi record the moments of joy and trauma in their lives. Gandhari recalls a happy adolescence, her family’s betrayal and the loss of her sons in a senseless war. Draupadi recalls her humiliation, her intense friendship with Krishna, her choosing Arjuna and the subsequent anxieties over his newly-acquired wife Subhadra, who is also Krishna’s half-sister.

‘Footnotes to the Mahabharata’ reveals to us the myriad ways in which women have dealt with unequal situations. In ancient times as well, the men in power were no match for the women they sought to control. Yet these women, who came from different parts of the subcontinent, do not speak as beleaguered victims or survivors. Powerful and confident in their own skin, they find love, friendship and meaning in real worlds and communicate this through the intimate nuances of poetry. They are resplendent because they do not simply stand and wait but plunge headlong into whatever life throws at them and live it fully, displaying courage and grace under pressure.

— The reviewer is professor of English at Sri Venkateswara College, Delhi