5 Paragraphs from the Mythological book Sarasvati's Gift feel so 2022!

 

No matter How the old or New the story is it always finds its way to be retold.

That very much happens with Indian mythological stories right?. From the early 2000s oh my friend Ganesha movie to this fictional book Saravasti's gift. The stories and characters are the same but narration always has its new spirit.

Mythological characters and stories are always interpreted with layers of learning. Many times people find trouble framing the philosophy hidden under the layers and misinterpret it. Some mythological stories have such a widespread in India that you can easily hear them from some elder or priest narrating them to children in temples and streets. People always label this part of the genre as snobbish, Stereotypical, and Orthodox but I really think they are just missing on Kavita Kane's narration. The writer has created her niche in the competitive space by choosing the most untold characters in the mythology.

An article by the Times of India published in 2020 says that Indian readers prefer Fact over fiction. Well, this book has both. But while coming to the debate of mythological fiction one of the writers in the article says the genre is quite competitive, readers, especially Indians can't get over a few selected names like Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni(The forest of Essentials), Amish Tripathi(Sita the warrior), and Dev Dutt Patnaik. 

As a child most of us the go-to mythological comic book was Amar Chitra Katha(ACK) a thin book filled with colorful Indian mythological characters. As of May 2014, Amar Chitra Katha has released 465 titles with the sole genre of  Indian Mythology. Somehow or other Mythological characters are part of our daily life conversations like be patient like Devi sita, your innocence reminds me of bholenath and there are many more in local slang.

But characters often remain untold in mythology. In the land of temples in India, there are two famous Saraswati temples in the subcontinent the first one sharada peeth in Jammu Kashmir, and the second one Gnana Saraswati temple in Basara, Telangana. The second temple comes very near to my hometown. According to Wikipedia, Children from all over India are brought to the temple for the learning ceremony called Akshara abyasam. Even my and my brother's cousins' learning ceremony took place there. Even though we're going to Basara since childhood it's astonishing that we never heard stories of the goddess except the sentence pray hard you will get into your favorite college or you will get good marks. This void of stories actually made to pick this book by the author. Biographies about these characters have created a separate genre along with a following and fanbase for these authors. But reading about them in so many details and precisions truly makes us feels so us among ourselves. Here are some which made me feel the same, I hope you can relate to them too.

1. Worship is Easier than Education.

Worship is Easier than Education that's why faith is blind. Worse, it's the radical reality that the world we created the world we live in is chauvinist we cannot work if we allow androcentric designations to define us demoting us as consorts.

       2. Breaking the stigma.

The blood is neither dirty nor impure to be ''purified'':the purity of mind is all that matters. How did something so pure become so ''unclean''?When religious patriarchs inappropriately twisted into taboos in their attempt to denigrate women and the female ecology. How can a women's blood be tainted as ''impure'' when it derives from the very womb essential to any human being?. The mother's blood is fundamental to life.

       3. Knowledge and Education do not always make wisdom.

They are trapped in their greed and quest for wealth. The same can be said about the learned too if they crave only success and glory, not wisdom. And there are many more incidents, examples, and quotes to prove it as it is.

      4. They worship us but do they respect their women?

''They worship us do they respect their women, grant them their human dignity''? The manifestation comes with recognizing and respecting the feminine divine presence in all genders. The goddesses are kept on a pedestal in the hallowed sanctum of temples, but their women largely remain shackled in their own homes

      5. It's her choice!

The idea that you are a real woman only if you can bear a child has been borrowed from a patriarchal society. But by freeing herself from this expectation by being an individualist she doesn't become less feminine, nor is she denying anything to the women in her. A woman's existence is more complex, more compelling than procreating - but again that's something only she can decide!