“I was born on the full moon under an auspicious constellation, the holiest of positions - much good it did me.”įrom this alone, you would predict the novel would follow an enraged and unapologetic woman determined to burn down the patriarchy. Note: I will not be delving into the craft or the queer rep, both of which I found to be excellent as an ace writer.įirst lines shouldn’t be this deceiving. Here, I will try to shed light as to why I found the characterization of Kaikeyi disturbingly white feminist and the novel stripped of the social nuances of the South Asian society. While I have no doubts some of them are, I am enraged for different reasons.
It’s often implied that most of the novel’s critics are purists and nationalists, enraged at the novel critiquing casteism in Hinduism. But the novel has faced enormous backlash too, mainly from Indians and Hindus hailing from South Asia. Critics have said Patel rescues Kaikeyi from ‘ the pantheon of wicked stepmothers’ in this novel. For all purposes, it has been the myth book of the season. Kaikeyi has been nominated for several prizes and hit the NYT bestselling list in the first week of its release.
But we are getting ahead of ourselves because Kaikeyi is the queen who exiled him.
In his exile, he goes on to defeat the evil king Ravana. So obviously, I, being an agnostic Hindu reader from South Asia, was beyond excited for its release.įor the uninitiated, Ramayana is one of the two staple Indian Epics every Hindu kid grows up with, telling the story of Rama, reincarnation of God Vishnu, who is exiled for fourteen years by one of his father’s wives, hellbent on making her son the king. The author implied she has critiqued casteism too. In the vein of Circe and other Greek retellings, it claimed to give voice to the vilified queen of King Dasharath, and use Kaikeyi’s arc to examine the South Asian patriarchy rooted in Hinduism.
Hailed as a fiercely feminist retelling of the epic Ramayana, Vaishnavi Patel’s Kaikeyi hit the shelves with flair, destined to be a bestseller. Inosh K Rukman on Kaikeyi - an exercise in white feminism.
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