Valmikiʼs Women Five Tales from Ramayana

Five tales take the women of the Ramayana as their subject, the figures who stand at the edges of an epic built around the life of a righteous prince. Each story considers what part these women play and why they have been remembered the way they have.

The angles are specific. One story considers whether King Dasharatha would have his longed-for sons without the sacrifice of his daughter Shanta. Another sets Manthara, a scheming handmaid to the queen in the usual telling, beside the possibility of a loving mother shielding her ward from palace intrigue.

A further story follows Meenakshi, known for her beautiful eyes, and traces how she came to be seen as the picture of ugliness and immoral lust.

Anand Neelakantan retells Valmiki's saga by peeling back its layers and looking again at lovers, sisters, wives and mothers. The stories turn on ambition, love, devotion and courage, and they press the point that the epic holds together because of the women it so often sidelines.