Sixteenth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

Storytelling, in both its forms, mimetic and diegetic, is the oldest and the most fascinating literary tradition. Even more enthralling is the retelling of these tales because they respond to the existing social milieu and augment the original text by multiple layers of interpretation. Indian myths, much like the European classica myths, have been a storehouse of inspiration to authors all over the world. Recently, the trend of gynocentric retellings of “The Ramayana” and “The Mahabharata” have garnered much pro-feminist attention and have been applaud. A quick succession of recently published novels, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s “A Palace of Illusions,” Kavita Kane’s “Karna’s Wife” followed by Urmila’s “Sister” or the animated “Sita’s Ramayana” by Samhita Arni and Moyna Chitrakar have all attempted to view the epic canvass through the woman’s lens. There is no reason to believe that these retellings by the woman and of the woman is an influence of the modern wave of feminism. The doubly subalterned has been speaking since the sixteenth century through the voice of a medieval poet Chandrabati. In rural India, there are numerous such retellings of the two major epics, extant mostly in the oral tradition. However, there is a pertinent difference between the narratives of the rural and the urban, the oral and the written, the unsophisticated and the literati. This paper attempts to reveal the specific differences between the two traditions and what these differences mean particularly in the Indian context. The paper addresses the issues of marginalization among the marginalized and of the threat of pseudo-feminist discourse.