Well, Kavita Kane is back
and I am sorry that I could not come out with a review earlier, but here it is,
nevertheless. ‘Lanka’s Princess’ is a book, that makes it complete. Nowadays, I
have begun to enjoy mythological fiction, with all the twist, I guess it
needed. With Anand Neelakantan taking care of all the male figures, whom I have
enjoyed and I guess they all deserve the kind of good boy imagery too, we now
have Kane handling the female figures…
and deservedly so… Always did wonder about Surpanakha and now, she seems to
have gotten it.
A very well researched
book, it shows Surpanakha as the earliest, Meenakshi. The daughter of Kaikesi
and Rishi Vishvaras, who is as hard as nails but needed to fight back against her
mother, who did not like her because she was a girl-child, and a dark skinned one,
and also her brothers who were on their own trips and her father too, at times,
when she was expecting support from him. The only love, she got was from her
brother, Kumbha, but it never was enough. As time goes by, Ravan is the ‘destined’
ruler of Lanka, taking it away from his step brother, Kubera.
As Ravan is cursed, that
if he takes any woman, if she does not wish it to be so, he is destined to be
hurt very badly, but Kaikesi fights her war against fortune, itself. Meenakshi
falls in love with Vidyujiva, who is Ravan’s enemy. Everything seems to fall in
place, and Vidyujiva, who seems to get on with Ravan, is suddenly killed in the
battlefield, when he goes to fight with him.
The two had a child
too, Kumar. Meenakshi, who is now at loggerheads with her brother and family,
who had accused him of cheating, not once, but many a time. She runs away from
her immediate family, to find solace in the forest of Dandak, with her uncle,
Mareecha. Her anger is unabated and threatening to kill Ravan, and preparing
Kumar to slay him. But fate has it in for her, since Kumar is killed by
Lakshman, quite by mistake, and Meenakshi, who is now destined to be
Surpanakha, will have to find her way again.
Anger and desperation
lead her deeper into Dandak, and she meets Ram, Sita and Lakshman. As, she
wants to find a way to kill Lakshman and Ram, she also thinks of a plan to kill
Ravan too, but she ends up getting defaced and hurt badly.
Then, it was according to
her plan that she goes to her brother complaining of all the atrocities done to
her by Ram and Lakshman. We all know the story of what happens after.
As we know what happens
to Lanka and Ravan, after but there was much more to happen with Lakshman. The
story goes on to explain what we might have missed in the entire story, and how
the Ramayana was also Meenakshi’s story as much as it was Sita’s, later.
There was so much more
to the story, Kaikesi’s own story about how she got Lanka back again and Ravan’s
never ending quest for power. With Meenakshi’s own struggle for the best in her
world, her ways of finding her own finest things in the harshest ways of the
world. How fate had played
tricks and how she ended up the way she was, the poor Meenakshi ended up
playing Surpanakha in the entire play of Ramayana.
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| Kavita Kane |
Whether you feel sorry for her, or if you feel slightly bad for her fortune, it might be completely up to you, but if she deserves this read, the Kavita Kane, you have nailed it...
You can Buy the Book, right here.
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