“Draupadi’s Struggles Is The Struggle Of Women Even Today”, Sonali Raje On Her Series “The Empress of Indraprastha’

As promised, Sonali Raje is here with her third part of her series “The Empress of Indraprastha.” The book is titled Nadir, Arabic for the lowest point in one’s life. “Zt 1s the lowest point tn the Pandavas’ lives, they have lost everything,” says Raje while explaining the title.
It also references to the feeling every individual experience who survived sexual harassment or sexual assault, which is the social cause she has picked up for the third part.

Sonali Raje showcases the canker of sexual harassment by highlighting the victim-perpetrator pairs of Draupadi-Keechak and Arjun-Urvashi, in this modern-day fictional recreation of the Mahabharat, with relevant lessons for current times. Meet the formidable, instant-karma, warrior queen – who waits for no man to fight for her, watch her stand tall for herself and other women around her, despite her life being at its – Nadir.

How did you come up with the idea that you want to include at least one social issue in each part and how do you decide which social issue you want to highlight in each book?

Sonali Raje: When I was writing the book I did not start with this idea of introducing a particular social cause in each book. But as I was writing I realized that this is what I am doing, when I talk about Draupadi’s maternal home, her relationship with her mother – the kind of mother daughter relationship we need more of. A mother that encourages her daughter to read, to speak up for herself, that was in book one.

In book two, I tried to break this idea that one woman is another woman’s enemy, and internalized misogyny. Draupadi was shown as someone who did not want other wives to come into her husbands’ life, and it isn’t true. She was trying to help everybody, even her co-wives.

Nakul’s wife was someone who lacked self-confidence, she came from a conservative family with traditional values. But she had a talent, dance and Draupadi finds a way for her talent to be used. While they were building their empire – Indraprastha they needed funds to build the economy, attract residents so they started organizing melas. And what Nakul’s wife would do is, she would train the dancers because as a queen of the empire she herself could not dance in front of everyone. Following dance and drama there comes the niche of costumes and props generating more employment and it becomes a whole social theme of women helping women.
In book three, Draupadi is going through vastra haran, so it only made sense to address the issue of sexual harassment. Then there is the Arjun – Uravashi tangent, where Uravashi curses him because he refused her advances. The concept of consent, it is not just for the women, even the men are allowed to say no.

You tend to create and add a few fictional characters in each book to help you complete the narrative. How do you come up with them and how do you know that yes this part would come out better if i add a certain character here?

‘There aren’t many such characters in the first book, well technically there. Those characters weren’t mentioned in the original Mahabharata but there were many references to them, like Karan’s wife.

The second book, there is Shambala, a Naga woman. The Nagas were always there but now the Pandavas have come and taken their land. Now you have to build a cohesive environment, where you are not just taking over somebody’s land and establishing your kingdom but you are actually working with the native population. Because whether you like it or not Pandavas were invaders and nobody likes their resources taken away, there will always be some friction. So, how they got together, how Shambala sees them and how they mutually help each other. They develop a symbiotic relationship which we need more of because all the time it is like
“hamara-tumhara, mera-tera”, land grabbing and wars. At the end of the day it is one rock from the sun so we have to learn to live in harmony. That’s how I decided to put Shambala in. In the third book, ‘There’s Ashwinkarni, a tribal girl who is about to be gang raped by a bunch of higher varna kshatriyas. To save this little girl, Draupadi picks up the sword and, like a warrior, annihilates all those people. So keeping up with the theme, I introduced Ashwinkarni.

So all these fictional characters were introduced in continuation with the theme and I put in my book what I want to see in the world. When somebody is being harassed you want to step up and stop the harassment, standing up for others. And Draupadi was just one person who fell victim to sexual harassment, even at that time women were the victims of sexual harassment and sexual assault. I tried to show that as well in my book.

Why did you title the book Nadir or why do you think Nadir is the most suitable title for this book?

The word Nadir is an Arabic-origin word, it refers to the lowest point in a person’s life. Astronomically too, zenith is the highest point and nadir is the lowest.

It is the lowest point in the Pandavas’ lives, they have lost everything, they have hit their rock bottom so looking at it from that perspective that title seemed very apt to me.

The other reason is that already the title is so long “The Empress of Indraprastha’ so this time I wanted something short to accompany it, that way it can also fit on the book cover.

In your second book you have said in the preface that “while the eons may change, the
ethos remain the same”, can you elaborate on that?

Mahabharata I feel is a timeless tale. Draupadi’s struggle is the struggle of women even today. There is this idea that all the characters in Mahabharata were gods, they could be incarnations of god born on earth to teach us all how to live but looking at them in these terms we lose the essence, the message the epic is trying to tell you that we as humans should strive to be the best versions of ourselves. So I think as people today, as we are trying to live our lives, the plain message of the epic is even relevant today. Both good and evil is in us but we can choose what to bring out.

The five Pandava brothers had agreed to share Draupadi as their wife, and each brother was her husband for one year at a time. As the year ended and Draupadi’s time with one husband ended and another husband began, she would walk through fire and thus regain her virginity, year after year.

What do you think about this?

Yes I have read about this in various versions but I do not see the need for it so I haven’t even included it in my book. Draupadi has to go through fire to regain her virginity, Sita in Ramayana has to give “agni pariksha” to prove her purity. All of this I find is very absurd and I have stayed away from it.

Why did you choose mahabharat? Why not Ramayan or any other epic tales?

In Ramayana, it was Maryada Purushottam Ram, a man who knew his Marayada, his values, he was the Ideal Man, the likes of god. Ramayana was a story of gods, the human factor was quite missing in it. On the other hand, I have always been fascinated by Mahabharata because it has a very human quality to it. The seemingly god-like characters make human mistakes and we other humans can learn from. Plus, it has a lot of scope for reinterpretation and retelling.

For people who don’t know you or about your books, why do you think people should read this book?

I think people should read these books for two reasons. First is, if you are into mythology and like to read similar books then these would be a very good fit for you, and second is for people who are not into mythology, picking up this book might ignite a interest for mythical stories in them and there is a possibility that they would look into the older versions and try to know more about it.