Song of Draupadi

I just finished reading Ira Mukhoty’s novel Song of Draupadi. On my much treasured visit (precious because of pandemic induced absence from bookstores)  to Faqir Chand Booksellers, in Khan Market, I dithered between Mukhoty’s Daughters of the Sun and this book. Daughters of the Sun is a non-fiction historical book but Song of Draupadi is a novel. That decided it for me.

I was drawn to the book, despite it being about Hinduism’s other great epic. The Mahabharata and its tragedy and gore with its monumental battle between cousins is chilling. But, Mukhoty promised a more woman-centric Mahabharata. She says, ‘I have always been interested in the depiction of women in the text, in the polyphony of female voices that struggle to be heard against the crashing background of male concerns and the strident call to war of the conch shell.’ Can a feminist resist this?

I would like to clarify why I called the Mahabharata ‘Hinduism’s other great epic’. The Ramayana, which follows the life of Lord Rama, with some digressions, back stories and side stories rarely loses its way the way the Mahabharata does.

In the Mahabharat it isn’t easy to keep track of the cousins, illegitimate first born children, children born to Queens fathered by the  an unknown person, not the Raja himself with the permission (nay the plea or command) of the Raja, in order to ensure heirs.

It isn’t only the serpentine coils of relationships that make the Mahabaharata difficult. The back stabbing, the battles, the meanness, the necessity for cunning, are disturbing in the extreme.

Don’t read it while pregnant

On a personal note, regarding the Mahabharata,  My mother-in-law said to me, ’We never keep a copy of the Mahabharata in the house’. The second superstition, one of her many requests when I was pregnant was ‘Don’t read the Mahabharata while pregnant.’ Never explained, leaving me to imagine which woman of the Mahabharata was so inauspicious that her karma may leak into a pregnant woman. I never did figure it out, partly because I gave up very soon. 

See the monkey in the Garden?

There’s a grand feeling about reading an epic  with its sweeping overview of a range of human emotions and behaviours, from the most depraved to the utterly noble which I experienced while reading Song of Draupadi. The language is baroque, as befits a Hindu epic and the setting could only be in India. ‘The clan heads all sit separately, on manchas covered with white silk cloths, gaudy as peacocks,’ and on the same page,  ‘ the rest of the boisterous crowd, the inconsequential and uninvited, press against the wooden barriers’. There’s subtle humour in the adjectives and metaphors which I discovered. As I got used to the cadence of the text that at first I found a little too florid for my taste I appreciated the relevance of the language to the subject. 

Understanding women’s ambitions of the time

I struggled a little with the behaviour of the strong women. Their ambitions too, which are harder for a woman of the 21st century to relate to.  It  fell into place when I re-read the Author’s Note. Mukhoty talks about the ‘subtlety of their rebellion’. She adds that it is ‘A version in which the women are imperfect.’ It is true that they are ‘noisy and railing and furious, rather than pleading or silenced.’

Gandhari does not wish to leave her mountain home to live in distant Hastinapur. Nor does she wish to be married to a blind King. Her blindfolding of herself isn’t presented as the actions of a dutiful wife. Rather it is the protest of a woman who will not submit to the will of the Kingmakers. They thought to turn her into Dritarashtra’s eyes. Nor does Draupadi accept the directive that she be wife to all five Pandava brothers. She needs a great deal of convincing, even though she is steeped in Hindu traditions. Her protest, despite her awareness that she must eventually submit showed how she would not be silenced. 

A Vow full of blood lust

We know Draupadi’s vow to keep her hair unbound till she can wash it in the blood of her tormentor. While chilling and unpleasantly aggressive, is in keeping with the times the Mahabharat is set in. It is in keeping with the reaction of a Hindu woman who was publicly disrobed. Think of Star Trek and Klingon women, who are as violent as Klingon men, and admired for it. I ask myself, why shouldn’t Draupadi be steeped in the same ways and thoughts as the men? Why would she not wish for vengeance, just because she is a radiant princess and queen, with hair so lustrous  it is mentioned often in the text?  Draupadi’s daily grooming involves among other preparations the ministrations of hair groomers. They ‘twist and coil her glossy hair into elaborate, plaited buns, studded with shells or pearls or stones.’ 

Mukhoty as helpfully added a Family Tree that you can consult when you get lost in who is related to whom, which you are bound to. All in all its a fascinating tale, retold beautifully. If you do read it, let me know which of the men made you most angry? 

Which Mahabharat man made you most angry?

I think Vyasa was mine because he made all the widows of Hastinapur drown themselves after the Battle of Kurukshetra. Arjun with his awful attention to ‘duty’ above relationships was another very annoying man. 

Song of Draupadi by Ira Mukhoty 

Pages 289

Publisher Aelph