Layout 3 - India Foundation for the Arts - IFA

Women are also identified with fate
and are depicted as ambitious, decisive
and uncompromising, ready to use
their sexuality instrumentally, and
possessing an inner core of violence
that sometimes verges on bloodlust. In
the Ramayana, despite appearances,
there is no dearth of strong,
ambitious, uncompromising women.
In A. Sashikanth’s marvellously
intriguing film Kelai Draupadi, which
documents the worship of Draupadi
as a powerful mother goddess in a
community, she is simultaneously
demanding and caring, strong and
vulnerable. There is acceptance in the
community of her capacity as a
protective mother who symbolises
ideas and principles of reproduction,
nurture and continuity.
By maintaining continuity with nature
and its unpredictability, women also
shape the events through which an
epic moves. It was as if the epics, as
the binding cement of everyday
religiosity, have to reaffirm for society
the bonding among femininity, power
Epic Culture – Ashis Nandy
Both exile and journey have to frequently include lifealtering
encounters with powerful women, directly
representing nature and natural forces, and the heroes
themselves have to strike cross-gender postures.
and intervention. In South Asia there
is a potent linkage between creativity
and androgyny. Both exile and journey
have to frequently include life-altering
encounters with powerful women,
directly representing nature and
natural forces, and the heroes
themselves have to strike cross-gender
postures, either as a temporary
identity or as a means of selftranscendence.
During his exile,
Arjuna becomes a dance teacher and a
eunuch and meets Chitrangada;
Bhima becomes a cook, visits patal and
marries a rakshasi. The experiences
enrich both.
Finally, there is the matter of
hermeneutic rights and hermeneutic
distance. Epics everywhere
grant their readers, listeners
and admirers hermeneutic
rights. If you do not grant
the right, people living with
the epic will exercise the
right in any case, unless you
can police their thoughts.
One important right is the
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