Just because I think across the world we’re seeing a rise of religious nationalism. And I’d say that’s a very similar response to how any alternate versions of the character of Rama get reception. I like that you brought up Christianity because we see a lot of critique of people who try to claim an alternate version of, say, Jesus’s life than what the more conservative mainstream version wants it to be. But it has changed … the marketing and the conversations that have come out of it. I don’t feel like any element of the actual story has been changed because of the knowledge that it’s a very powerful cultural story that means a lot to a lot of people. People are really not gonna be happy about that one.” And then my editor, who is also a South Asian woman, was also like, “I fully support this book and we also have to be careful.”
And, you know, I told my mom, and she was like, “Oh.
I’m just gonna write it.” And I think it was really good for me that the first draft I wrote, I wasn’t thinking about potential reception. I grew up with it, I’ve done the research. So when I first sat down to write this, I was sort of like, “This is my story. Writing a book like Kaikeyi, you’re taking the reins on that force and you’re trying to steer it a bit. They shape societal mores, and therefore individual thinking, in ways that we don’t even always register. Julie Sternberg: Religious and cultural texts, like the Ramayana and the Bible, for example, just an almost immeasurable societal power. In this conversation with Eve and Julie, Vaishnavi relates why she became fascinated by Kaikeyi’s story how her research led her to surprising evidence of feminism in the Ramayana source material how she’s handled backlash from people who “believe in some sort of Hindu supremacy” and who deem her novel a threat and why the novel in fact strengthened her relationship with Hinduism, as well as the connection of some of her readers to their Hindu faith. asks, What if she had reasons for doing what she did? What if the story was a little bit different and we can understand her actions rather than them just being spur-of-the-moment jealousy, which is what we get in the Ramayana?” Vaishnavi’s novel “tells the story of the evil stepmother character, who sets off the whole epic by exiling Rama, and then just sort of disappears. What is it like to create a modern, feminist retelling of an ancient, foundational text? Vaishnavi Patel-author of the instant New York Times bestselling novel Kaikeyi, a reimagining of the Hindu epic the Ramayana-paints a vivid picture in this episode of Book Dreams.
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