Book Review: Ahalya & Kunti by Koral Dasgupta

“Your conscious choices define your dreams, your subconscious interests reveal your character.”

Surya Deva in Kunti by Koral Dasgupta

Lines from the book Kunti that prompted me to stop and ponder. There are many such. You read them, then you take a moment to let them sink in, and then you read further. 

I recently finished reading Ahalya and Kunti, two separate books from the Sati series by Koral Dasgupta. And I am left wanting more. Koral builds these beautiful worlds that the women come from and makes you part of those worlds. Her take on both their stories is starkly different from how traditionalists would want to portray these women from Hindu mythology. 

For many centuries women have been responsible to uphold their virtue, not just theirs but the family’s and the communities. What is this virtue? Truth be told, perhaps even we do not know that. Indian mythology tells you stories of women who have gone beyond the conventional part, and stirred the events that followed. However, in telling and retelling of these epics, their individual stories got shrouded in presumptions. Their stories were told from the perspective and objective of the reciter. Therefore, what the uninitiated know of these women is from what they have been passed down as stories and context. Often dismissing these women as an inconsequential character in their own narrative. 

Koral presents a different perspective, though toeing the line of the original story. She lets us into the minds, and the hearts, of these courageous women. She does not shy away from expressing sexuality and sexual desires, and makes the protagonists as human as we all are. She reasons, through these women, the decisions they took, even if commanded by rousing desire or royal responsibilities. In her note to the readers in the first book, she introduces the concept of Pancha Kanya from the Hindy mythology, and how these women were revered in the ancient times. 

It also makes me wonder that when we have such examples in mythology, how and where did we misrepresent the ‘boundaries’ that women must not cross. Who defines these boundaries? Like Koral mentions at the end of her second book – ‘patriarchal conveniences’. The books are as engaging as a story, as they can prompt you to think beyond the obvious. While Koral paints a fascinating picture of the world that the women operate in, she also leaves enough for the creativity of your own minds to take flight and make their worlds your own. I like how she unravels the layered complexities of the situations both Ahalya and Kunti were thrown into. Reading Ahalya is like reading a poem, with lots of soft edges and many curves. Kunti is painted as a strong royal consort, who has an educated and brilliant mind of her own. I enjoyed living in their worlds as I read the books and cannot wait to read the upcoming books of the Sati series.

I definitely recommend reading these books because they provide a different take on the Pancha Kanya from the Hindu Mythology, giving them identities that we can relate to. And not merely relegating them as side-characters of great epics.