The heroes of epics are extraordinary men. However, that does not preclude their wives from running away (The Iliad), being abducted (Ramayana) or, as happens with Draupadi in the Mahabharata, publicly dishonoured. Serving as plot devices to set the men on the high road to herohood, these events don’t do much for the women. Author-politician M Veerappa Moily, whose earlier work, Shree Ramayana Mahanveshanam, is an acclaimed epic in Kannada, has redressed this lack in his poetic retelling,
The Flaming Tresses of Draupadi, translated by D A Shankar.
The first canto explains how the poet was inspired. ‘The second epic of mine born in the heart of/My wedded wife, Malati, and gushed through my/Being like the stainless pure water of Achchoda/Lake, and the cool water rippled down and bestowed/On me the nectar of a poetry of high order.’ Through frequent soliloquies the poet enlarges upon Draupadi and her extra dimension as the fire-god’s daughter who ‘Bowed not and refused to tow [sic] the line of Sita and Savitri.’
Early in the saga she tells Krishna ‘You are on a chariot of idealism; I am its charioteer; / and yet within me are anger and desire; but/ Since you have the power to steer all right I may access/ Woman-power of an unusual kind.’
Frequent foreshadowing of this kind gives the tale a piquant flavour. At Draupadi’s swayamvara, Karna threatens to win the archery contest and give away the prize to Duryodhana. ‘You will be his call girl, getting on to his bed whenever he orders you to!’ Fortunately, Krishna jumps in: ‘She is not a thing to be bought and gifted, she is no merchandise!/ This is not a game of dice. It is a swayamvara and if you/ In a fit of loyalty try to touch the end of her saree, I shall / Not let you live.’
This exchange is a prelude to a fundamentally farcical situation. Reaching her nuptial home in Ekachakra, the potter’s colony, and hearing that she is to be the wife of five men, the bride wonders, ‘Has the spring of culture in India gone dry?’ Her bemusement deepens on the first night when she overhears the brothers discussing ‘The art of taming elephants and losses and of running a nation,/ Of managing the fiscal policy. Yudhisthira then takes it upon himself to explain the web of relationships she has acquired: ‘Understand: If I ask you to go to the temple, Bhima would want you to be in the kitchen and then Partha desires to go hunting! Then/ Nakula would want you to go horse-riding and Sahadeva/ Sitting in the open, would, staring at the starry sky, think of the future.’
What follows is a narrative tour through the key episodes of Vyasa’s epic, but with intriguing modifications. When Draupadi runs into Karna again,
for example. ‘Vasushena was there with a bouquet of flowers/ In his hand but did not know to whom it was to be given.’ He gives them to her and craves
her pardon.
Language is at the core of myths. It imbues them with multiple meanings. But, this work, despite its scope, offers no fresh insights. Numerous typos and clumsy similies, ‘I shall rise like the fire which springs from/ The explosion of atomic arsenal,’ and ‘The fire within me made my face sprout dark fumes,’ detract from the reading experience. It descends to the ludicrous when, for instance, Keechaka embraces Bhima (disguised as a woman), and asks, ‘And where is your girlie body?’ One wonders: And where was the editor?