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ljiang28Written by Stephen Hong Sohn
Edited by Lina Jiang
Based on the Hindu epic, the Ramayana, Vashnavi Patel’s Kaikeyi (Redhook, 2022) takes on a revisionist approach by centering the perspective of the titular Kaikeyi, a figure who has sometimes been reviled. Let’s let the official marketing description give us some contexts: “I was born on the full moon under an auspicious constellation, the holiest of positions—much good it did me. So begins Kaikeyi’s story. The only daughter of the kingdom of Kekaya, she is raised on legends of the gods: how they churned the vast ocean to obtain the nectar of immortality, how they vanquish evil and ensure the land of Bharat prospers, and how they offer powerful boons to the devout and the wise. Yet she watches as her father unceremoniously banishes her mother, listens as her own worth is reduced to how great a marriage alliance she can secure. And when she calls upon the gods for help, they never seem to hear. Desperate for some measure of independence, she turns to the texts she once read with her mother and discovers a magic that is hers alone. With this power, Kaikeyi transforms herself from an overlooked princess into a warrior, diplomat, and most favored queen, determined to carve a better world for herself and the women around her. But as the evil from her childhood tales threatens the cosmic order, the path she has forged clashes with the destiny the gods have chosen for her family. Kaikeyi must decide if resistance is worth the destruction it will wreak—and what legacy she intends to leave behind.”
One of the most interesting deviations from some of the more standard renderings of the Hindu epic is the fact that Kaikeyi is born with a special ability that allows her to access something called the binding plane. This place is sort of a psychic location that involves the connections that are built between individuals. Kaikeyi has the capacity to influence the strings that link people together and artificially enhance these bonds. Such a power becomes particularly useful, especially as Kaikeyi involves herself in various political alliances. However, the main issue that the novel grapples with is a central issue that emerges in the Hindu epic concerning her relationship with her stepson Rama (Kaikeyi is the third wife of a king, and Rama is the child of another wife). In the most commonly understood storyline, Kaikeyi does not want to lose her power and when her attendant, Manthara, gives her information that Rama will eventually become king, Kaikeyi decides to trade in two divinely granted favors—called boons—that the king owes her based upon an earlier battle sequence in which Kaikeyi saves the king’s life. Kaikeyi uses these boons to banish Rama to the wilderness and install her own biological son on the king’s throne. Without this information, readers might have read this novel as a kind of interesting feminist depiction of power within a vaguely Asian context.
*spoiler alert here*
Thus, what Patel really offers is a kind of revisionist Hindu epic in which Kaikeyi’s motive behind banishing Rama emerges not in the context of protecting her own power but actually because of the danger that Kaikeyi perceives in the way that Rama is dealing with his emerging spiritual identity. Much like other feminist revisionist texts, such as Christa Wolf’s Cassandra, Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea, amongst others, Patel seeks to establish a different way of understanding Kaikeyi. What is most interesting to me is the fissure between readers who are aware of the Hindu epics’ most traditional depictions and the readers who are mostly unfamiliar with them. The marketing team behind the American version does not fully elaborate upon the epic contexts and instead, the marketing description focuses more on a kind of action-packed plot with a female lead at its center. Much, I think, of the force of Patel’s novel is blunted without the reader’s fuller awareness of the epic’s background, but the novel elements included—such as the binding plane—certainly provide much for anybody to engage with this intriguing work.
Buy the Book Here
Edited by Lina Jiang
Based on the Hindu epic, the Ramayana, Vashnavi Patel’s Kaikeyi (Redhook, 2022) takes on a revisionist approach by centering the perspective of the titular Kaikeyi, a figure who has sometimes been reviled. Let’s let the official marketing description give us some contexts: “I was born on the full moon under an auspicious constellation, the holiest of positions—much good it did me. So begins Kaikeyi’s story. The only daughter of the kingdom of Kekaya, she is raised on legends of the gods: how they churned the vast ocean to obtain the nectar of immortality, how they vanquish evil and ensure the land of Bharat prospers, and how they offer powerful boons to the devout and the wise. Yet she watches as her father unceremoniously banishes her mother, listens as her own worth is reduced to how great a marriage alliance she can secure. And when she calls upon the gods for help, they never seem to hear. Desperate for some measure of independence, she turns to the texts she once read with her mother and discovers a magic that is hers alone. With this power, Kaikeyi transforms herself from an overlooked princess into a warrior, diplomat, and most favored queen, determined to carve a better world for herself and the women around her. But as the evil from her childhood tales threatens the cosmic order, the path she has forged clashes with the destiny the gods have chosen for her family. Kaikeyi must decide if resistance is worth the destruction it will wreak—and what legacy she intends to leave behind.”
One of the most interesting deviations from some of the more standard renderings of the Hindu epic is the fact that Kaikeyi is born with a special ability that allows her to access something called the binding plane. This place is sort of a psychic location that involves the connections that are built between individuals. Kaikeyi has the capacity to influence the strings that link people together and artificially enhance these bonds. Such a power becomes particularly useful, especially as Kaikeyi involves herself in various political alliances. However, the main issue that the novel grapples with is a central issue that emerges in the Hindu epic concerning her relationship with her stepson Rama (Kaikeyi is the third wife of a king, and Rama is the child of another wife). In the most commonly understood storyline, Kaikeyi does not want to lose her power and when her attendant, Manthara, gives her information that Rama will eventually become king, Kaikeyi decides to trade in two divinely granted favors—called boons—that the king owes her based upon an earlier battle sequence in which Kaikeyi saves the king’s life. Kaikeyi uses these boons to banish Rama to the wilderness and install her own biological son on the king’s throne. Without this information, readers might have read this novel as a kind of interesting feminist depiction of power within a vaguely Asian context.
*spoiler alert here*
Thus, what Patel really offers is a kind of revisionist Hindu epic in which Kaikeyi’s motive behind banishing Rama emerges not in the context of protecting her own power but actually because of the danger that Kaikeyi perceives in the way that Rama is dealing with his emerging spiritual identity. Much like other feminist revisionist texts, such as Christa Wolf’s Cassandra, Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea, amongst others, Patel seeks to establish a different way of understanding Kaikeyi. What is most interesting to me is the fissure between readers who are aware of the Hindu epics’ most traditional depictions and the readers who are mostly unfamiliar with them. The marketing team behind the American version does not fully elaborate upon the epic contexts and instead, the marketing description focuses more on a kind of action-packed plot with a female lead at its center. Much, I think, of the force of Patel’s novel is blunted without the reader’s fuller awareness of the epic’s background, but the novel elements included—such as the binding plane—certainly provide much for anybody to engage with this intriguing work.
Buy the Book Here
