Oyindrila Basu

Kanyayug Oyindrila Basu

"She walked into the fire, and the world watched her with loaded eyes. Was she obeying her husband or punishing herself? What was her secret sin?She was an Asura queen. Her righteousness and devotion protected her sinful husband, but couldn't protect her virtue. But, did she give up?She was the young sister of the 'Devi' and the wife of the younger Ikshwaku prince, but what was her name?She is known as the deadliest demoness of all times but, where did she come from?Who are these women? What did they do? How did they live?These questions have been doing rounds through generations of oral tradition in Ramayana. But somehow, the various versions and retellings of the great epic have submerged these stories under the sand of cultural idealism. Lord Rama, the Maryadapurushottam, is what the abridged tales intended to establish and consolidate the foregrounds of Indian patriarchy with positivism. The women have played irreplaceable roles in the formation of the Ramayana, but their stories have always come in as subplots in the grandeur of heroism. Kanyayug, for the first time, unapologetically unearths the unsung stories of these women. Their plight, their pain, their emotions, their inner battles and deep-hidden secrets come to life through the creative ink of the author. This unique Literary fiction, while studying the exemplary Women in Ramayana, challenges old myths and reconstructs Devi, Asura, Apsara and Yaksha together, by bringing each one from the epic and unifying them in a single narrative. "