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A review by vishaka
Kaikeyi by Vaishnavi Patel
4.0
"Before this story was Rama's, it was mine."
As a child, my mother and grandmother would always tell me the stories of Ramayana and Mahabharata. When they’d tell me about Ramayana and about how the sly maid Manthara had poisoned Queen Kaikeyi’s mind and had Rama, -the heroic and just protagonist- his wife Sita, and brother Lakshmana banished to a forest for 14 years just so her son could have the kingdom's throne. Like most people, I deeply disliked Kaikeyi for what she did.
This story takes a whole new spin on Kaikey's story and introduces her to us as a brash, fun loving child who's competitive with her brothers and is always ignored by her father for reasons she can't understand until she's older. We're taken through her life in Kekaya until she marries Dasharath, the prince of Kosala who already had two wives before her.
As someone who's read the Amar Chitra Katha's comic version as well as C. Rajagopalachari's translated version many, many times, Kaikeyi really lived up to my standards. Kaikeyi's development as a character and her relationships with the other characters was really lovely to see. It was just so beautiful and I'm pretty sure I finished it in less than 6 hours.
What I really loved about this was that, we never actually see Kaikeyi turn into a villain, like how she's portrayed in the original stories. In this, she's a daughter, a wife, a mother, and a queen doing the best she can to protect her loved ones with everything she has. Here, characters that we really loved in the epic were shown as deeply and realistically flawed, and characters that we despised were shown as 3D characters with their own sides to the story, such as Kaikeyi herself.
The magic system itself was incredible. While it was beautifully portrayed and simple to understand, it has a depth of emotional complexity that most magic systems don't really have. It was used really well, right up to the last part of the book where as we all know, Kaikeyi banishes Rama to the forest for 14 years.
The only criticism I have is that even though the book is labelled as queer, the only representation we really get to see is Kaikeyi, who is aromantic and asexual. We only have about 2 or 3 lines where its mentioned that she has an aversion to sex and romance but after that it's just never spoken about again.
This book is such a well written, feminist retelling of the story of one of the most vilified woman in Hindu mythology, and though I was a little frustrated that we never actually get to the end of the epic, I still really enjoyed this story. It brought back a lot of nostalgia and memories and is 100% worth the read. 4 stars!
As a child, my mother and grandmother would always tell me the stories of Ramayana and Mahabharata. When they’d tell me about Ramayana and about how the sly maid Manthara had poisoned Queen Kaikeyi’s mind and had Rama, -the heroic and just protagonist- his wife Sita, and brother Lakshmana banished to a forest for 14 years just so her son could have the kingdom's throne. Like most people, I deeply disliked Kaikeyi for what she did.
This story takes a whole new spin on Kaikey's story and introduces her to us as a brash, fun loving child who's competitive with her brothers and is always ignored by her father for reasons she can't understand until she's older. We're taken through her life in Kekaya until she marries Dasharath, the prince of Kosala who already had two wives before her.
As someone who's read the Amar Chitra Katha's comic version as well as C. Rajagopalachari's translated version many, many times, Kaikeyi really lived up to my standards. Kaikeyi's development as a character and her relationships with the other characters was really lovely to see. It was just so beautiful and I'm pretty sure I finished it in less than 6 hours.
What I really loved about this was that, we never actually see Kaikeyi turn into a villain, like how she's portrayed in the original stories. In this, she's a daughter, a wife, a mother, and a queen doing the best she can to protect her loved ones with everything she has. Here, characters that we really loved in the epic were shown as deeply and realistically flawed, and characters that we despised were shown as 3D characters with their own sides to the story, such as Kaikeyi herself.
The magic system itself was incredible. While it was beautifully portrayed and simple to understand, it has a depth of emotional complexity that most magic systems don't really have. It was used really well, right up to the last part of the book where as we all know, Kaikeyi banishes Rama to the forest for 14 years.
The only criticism I have is that even though the book is labelled as queer, the only representation we really get to see is Kaikeyi, who is aromantic and asexual. We only have about 2 or 3 lines where its mentioned that she has an aversion to sex and romance but after that it's just never spoken about again.
This book is such a well written, feminist retelling of the story of one of the most vilified woman in Hindu mythology, and though I was a little frustrated that we never actually get to the end of the epic, I still really enjoyed this story. It brought back a lot of nostalgia and memories and is 100% worth the read. 4 stars!