Understanding Kaikeyi

Kaikeyi is not a name to be given to a newborn Like Surpanakha or Putana other oftrecalled villainous female characters from Indian epics Kaikeyi is synonymous with discord greed and trickeryThe second queen of King Dashrath exemplifies the conniving strategist who exiled Lord Rama to protect her sons interests The package lends itself gorgeously to popular myths folk tales television soaps and jokes on the web Kaikeyi moments in Ramanand Sagars Bollywoodstyled Ramayana float till date in cyberspace and so do the memes poking fun at Kaikeyilike selfseekers particularly funny is the appropriation of Amitabh Bachchans dialogues for Kaikeyi intrigueWhile she occupies a stable slot in the encyclopaedia of wicked women Mumbais literary cosmos is currently agog with a rather offbeat sympathetic narrative of the reviled woman The Hindi book Shapita RK Publication written by academic Dr Pragya Shukla 71 is a translation of the 2018 Gujarati original of the same name by veteran writer Minal Dixit Shapita the cursed one is a sharp incisive dismissal of the unfair patriarchal assessment of Kaikeyis life Quoting select shlokas from Valmiki Ramayana Dixit has demonstrated the protagonist as the wronged and aggrieved partymdashrobbed of mothers love at an early age due to bickering parents raised by a maid unfulfilled as a queen unrewarded despite rare bravery and martial skills and lastly deserted by her own thankless son who saw no merit or rationale in her rebellionDixit has located yetunexplored shades of grey in Kaikeyis character which have not been acknowledged in popular imagination For instance Kaikeyis love for animals or her ability to offer herself as the rocking sex partner less than half his age and political advisor to an ageing dependent kingDixit for a long time has placed Kaikeyi at the centre of her investigation of the Raghukul dynamic Sometime in 1971 when she was the producer helming Gujarati womens programming at All India Radio in Mumbai she had written a 50minute soliloquy on Kaikeyi At that time Kaikeyi had begun to seize me I wanted to share and amplify my connect Dixit 88 remembersThose were the pretelevision days when Bombay loyally followed the AIR beat and listeners wrote letters to the favourite radio announcers Kaikeyis ekokti was received warmly as a defining progressive moment in Gujarati radio content Our office was flooded with postcards of appreciation for the very idea of giving a platform to Kaikeyi Native Gujarati speakers told us that they hadnt heard a more straightforward appraisal in their local cultural milieu that too of a character who is known as the trigger for Ramayana recalls Durga Bhatt 77 Dixits AIR colleague who shared the enthusiasm of relooking at demonised womenJokes and memes inspired by Kaikeyis character continue to flood the InternetAs Dixit got busy with her life in AIR she rose to the stature of station director in the 1980s and shifted base from Bombay to Rajkot she finally chose Mumbai as home after retirement in 1989 She has written 10 novels three short story collections and a popular newspaper column Her books including Shapita have won statelevel awards However her work on Kaikeyi took over 50 years to crystallise as a text I was fascinated by the fact that an ace charioteer and horse rider like Kaikeyi was unable to drive her own life in the intended direction ruminates Dixit who is currently basking in the joy of the Hindi translation of Shapita When admirers asked about her next venture at the book launch she added with a chuckle There is no energy left now Kaikeyi should have the last word I guess Dixit feels Kaikeyi is underutilised material that new writers can work with because there are few characters who live with eternal posthumous disgraceAmusingly Dixit has also shared in the foreword her sense of trepidation while tackling Kaikeyi because her reinterpretation is tantamount to a dissection of King Dashrath and in a way Lord Rama too It is easier to blame Kaikeyi for Ramas woes than interrogate the Raghukul patriarchy male bias and palace intrigue After telling Kaikeyis story Dixit has presented an audit analysis of other women characters in the RamayanamdashSita Urmila Mandavi Kausalya Sumitra Mandodari Shabari and even maid Manthara who illustrates extreme rare loyalty She states that none are genuinely happy and each suffered at the hands of unappreciative men Their outbursts are coping mechanisms not behaviour traitsDuring her AIR days Minal Dixit 88 had written a soliloquy on Kaikeyi that took an alternate view of the character She did not present Kaikeyi as the woman who birthed the conflict at the centre of Ramayana PicAtul KambleLike Shapita there are a few compassionate depictions of Kaikeyi across Indian languages Her human shades emerge in Dr AK Ramanujans Three Hundred Ramayanas Five Examples and Three Thoughts on Translation the scholarly essay which opens doors for varied evaluations of Lord Ramas story some contradicting the popular version of Goswami Tulsidas Ramcharitmanas In popular fiction too some authors have been kinder to Kaikeyi Amreeta Sens 1992 blank verse Kaikeyi which she later dramatised represents the flawed female as a mere vulnerable empress who had reasons for furthering her sons inheritance claim Sens work inspired an Italian author Rosalba Griesi to write a dissertation on Kaikeyis universal appeal In the Marathi literary world the 1977 musical Dhadila Ram Tine Ka Vani veered towards a positive image of Kaikeyi Playwright DG Godse defended Kaikeyis actions as part of a supposedly secret benevolent plan to send Rama to the forest for decimating evil In this series of recast Kaikeyi tales falls Suresh Kalas Kaikeyi The Mother of a GodDixits Kaikeyi gets the credit for bringing Hindi and Gujarati literary traditions closer especially at a time when women are rewriting alternative narratives while leading social initiatives and gender justice battles Dixit holds a law degree and was a practising lawyer in Surat before joining AIR She has therefore proved to be a senior counsel for Kaikeyi Interestingly Dixits book Kayda Na Fayda focuses on legal aid for women It is the kind of stuff women like Kaikeyi read while reminding their husbands of unfulfilled commitments and raghukul reetSumedha RaikarMhatre is a culture columnist in search of the subtext You can reach her at sumedharaikarmiddaycomCatch up on all the latest Crime National International and Hatke news here Also download the new midday Android and iOS apps to get latest updates