In The Kaunteyas, Madhavi S Mahadevan helps us see Kunti as a disadvantaged woman whose actions are justified by her constraints. In a society where women are judged for beauty, Kunti is plain-faced; where lineage determines status, she is a foster-child; and where women care first and foremost for their honour, she finds herself an unwed mother. This Kunti is also naïve, for she does not realise that the “vashikaran mantra” given by the sage will compel the Sun-god to be her lover. Squeamish about her reputation, she abandons her son Karna, and retains a pretense of virginity. The same Kunti also demonstrates fortitude when she serves the “dreadful guest” Durvasa, and generosity when she shares the boon with co-wife Madri whom she really envies.
Along with Kunti, we enter the inner chambers of the palace to understand how it is really the queens who—by unearthing secrets, politicking and succession-planning—determine the power-balance in the present and future of the state. The relationships between the rajmata (queen-mother), patrani (chief-queen) and sapatni (co-queen) are centrestage and our attention stays on the women characters. As the title notes, the Pandavas are not Pandu’s, but Kunti’s sons; they are Kaunteyas, and a term that is used with sarcasm in the Mahabharata becomes a compliment.
On the whole, then, even as we appreciate the necessity of increasing the height of that pile of books retelling epics from a woman’s perspective, the storyline is predictable—a plot we already know too well, a theme of women, and the redemption of a female character vilified or just flattened in previous tellings. Surprising then, that this book remains readable. Every chapter ends with a cliffhanger, the dialogues are realistic and there is no dead-air. What Kunti really thinks and cannot say is italicised, helping build empathy. Mahadevan is particularly sensitive to a mother’s experience and the emotional state of motherhood and birth scenes are memorable. Some of the scenes among the queens are a little melodramatic, and this could appeal to the popular fiction market (rather than literary fiction); and yet, the language is elegant, and the diction, consistent.
Such Hindi terms as lehenga and geographical descriptions locate the story in some indeterminate part of Northern India.
As one reads this book, one also notes how the authors stay within the frame of the dominant framework. At a time when the mere tag of “mythology” can work as a cash-cow to feed the seemingly endless appetites of heritage-learners, how tempting it must be for an author writing a mythological novel to tip over into mythological fantasy (my-fi?), add a raunchy scene or two, and even invent some new characters? There is also potential to protest a social milieu of centuries ago, and Mahadevan seems to care for none of that.
Mind you, she is not unaware of the problematic aspects of the dominant narrative. Mahadevan’s Kunti knows she is culpable for the murder of the Nishada family in the lac palace, but the point is not sensationalised. It is not only the women who are constrained by society in The Kaunteyas—Pandu also has the constraints of his birth and inheritance, and is a reluctant king. Such balance and sobriety makes The Kaunteyas less of a controversy to talk about, and more of a book to actually read.