5 feminist reads that put women's voices front and center

Indian Express

12 hours ago

(Written By Prachi Mishra)
In the world of storytelling, women have long been relegated to the margins, either to the status of goddesses or ghosts, muses or martyrs. Yet, there are stories where women do not merely step into the tale, they are the tale. These are books that do not just have women in them, rather they unravel their worlds, their wounds, and their wonders. These books do more than just present women as characters; they breathe life into their struggles, dreams, tragedies, and triumphs. They work from myth, history, or the present day to weave a rich tapestry of feminine experience and offer the reader subtle representations of womanhood.
Let us step into these pages where the woman refuses to wait in the wings and stands at centre stage as the ink-stained heroine of her tale.
R. Parthasarthy, renowned scholar, who translated the text from Tamil to English language notes that 'Silappadikaram is to Tamil what Iliad and Odyssey are to the Greek.'
Silappadikaram (translated as 'The Tale of an Anklet'), is one of the earliest Tamil epics. Part of Sangam literature, the epic covers the story of Kannagi, who is a testament of love, sacrifice and resilience. She is presented as a gentle wife for the most part of the epic highlighting the patriarchal set-up as she longs for her husband, Kovalan, even after he cheats on her with a courtesan Madhavi. But her character arc changes drastically when she transforms herself into a fierce embodiment of righteousness. Her fury knows no bounds when Kovalan is accused of theft even though he is innocent, and this brings us to the epic scene where she cuts off her breast and curses the entire city.
There have been multiple movies based on the epic Silappadikaram including the 1942 movie titled Kannagi and the 1964 Poompuhar. The story also features in the popular television series Bharat Ek Khoj.
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'The pages of a book have to be turned, but the leaves of fate turn by themselves.'
Women and suffering goes hand in hand, and no other woman character falls near to Draupadi in this matter. Pratibha Ray's rendition 'Yajnaseni: The story of Draupadi' was written originally in Odia and then later translated by Pradip Bhattacharya into English. Ray beautifully portrays this widely known tale of Mahabharata through the lens of the female protagonist Draupadi giving it a female perspective. Through a long, intimate letter to Krishna, she pours out the anguish of being born of fire (hence the name Yajnaseni), shared by five husbands and then gambled away like property by her own husband Yudhisthir. But her plight doesn't end here. It is her who is blamed for the danse macabre, the epic battle of Kurukshetra to which she lost all her sons.
'What is love if not a hunger?'
Rao's novel is a tour de force, exploring the lives of Poornima and Savitha, two young girls from a village in Andhra Pradesh. Their bond of friendship becomes the lifeline that drives them through a series of harrowing events of poverty, abuse, trafficking, and separation. But, what's interesting to note is the fact that despite their suffering, both women never stopped searching for one another. The beauty of this novel lies in that the two female characters nurture their happiness from rather simple, dreary things like indigo clothes or yogurt rice. Each had brought on thousands of memories.
The telling being from two perspectives, it is a story that is grave yet hopeful, a small lamp glimmering at the tunnel's end, showing the female spirit against unimaginable odds.
Very raw and wild in its approach, the novel touched subjects that at times can be very discomfiting, leaving the reader uncertain whether to continue reading or put it down. However, curiosity usually gets the better of the reader, and one just has to know the story.
'I am not the representative of any one caste, one religion, or one society. I am the representative of the entire clan of women who have, for centuries, endured ill-treatment.'
Originally written in Malayalam language, about a place in Kerala that basks under the suffocating gaze of tradition, the novel Agnisakshi (translated as Fire, My Witness by Vasanthi Sankaranarayanan) tries to light the flame. Unlike other women, Lalthambika's protagonist Thankam, a namboodiri woman, longs for liberation of her soul and self and never desires a blossoming love or earthly riches. Amidst the confines of orthodoxy and rigid social structures, Thankam's voice challenges the tradition of her time. And an important thing to note is the fact that it is not a sword-to-sway kind of rebellion, rather it is a revolution of whispers. Thankam does not burn with anger but with quiet conviction, and her fire is witnessed in rather private acts of escape than in public uprisings.
A film adaptation of the novel was released in the year 1999, titled the same as that of the novel, Agnisakshi.
'Fame: it's a drug more potent than opium'
In her beautifully rendered historical novel, Divakaruni shares with the world the forgotten story of Maharani Jindan Kaur, the last queen of Punjab and the wife of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. The novel tells of her rise to power, beginning from humbler origins, her strong resistance against the British Empire after her husband's death, and her sorrowful separation from her son. Under Jindan light has dawned as a symbol of defiance and motherly courage in colonial India. What is important to note is that instead of idolizing Jindan, Chitra focuses on humanizing her character.
Moreover, the beauty of the novel is exhibited with the use of proper Punjabi terms and Divakaruni makes it a point to not indianize this story.
'I may be injured; I may even be wounded to the heart; but I'm not defeated yet' and 'If Jindan wants something badly enough, she can make it happen. She believes this completely', through these lines the reader is very well made aware of the kind of character Jindal has, a woman who simply refuses to be silenced by the events of history, and as a woman who is too bold to be forgotten.