Then and Now: Reworking of Mahabharata by Shashi Deshpande

Abstract

Story-telling is a natural phenomenon of human life, far away from the boundaries of culture, and languages and myths are the most fascinating, inspiring, and provoking sources for stories across the ages and geographical limits. Shashi Deshpande is one of the few Indian English writers who have acknowledged the influence of myths on society and worked with Indian mythological characters with improved focus and vision. She tries to manipulate a constant parallel between contemporaneity and antiquity. Some of her short stories are highly influenced by mythological tales and characters through which she gets a tour of ancient spheres of life to resolve all kinds of social, political, and spiritual apprehensions. The present paper proposes an in-depth analysis of some selected mythological characters from Mahabhartha portrayed in Deshpande’s short stories where she articulates these mythological characters to bring out the original ideals of womanhood. It aims to study that how Deshpande rejects stereotypes of mythological characters of Kunti in Hear me Sanjaya, Amba in The Inner Rooms, Draupadi in And What has been Decided, and Lord Krishna in My Beloved Charioteer and re-questions their identity.  Deshpande portrays these characters speaking to their mind and soul not being dominated by any social conditioning. The attempt here is to explore the theme of patriarchal dominance and biased gender roles by exploring the feminist threads in these stories.