The Unforgettable Desire

The One who Swam with the Fishes , Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan, India, HarperCollins Publishers India, 2017, 1st edition, 152 pages, ₹250. Add caption Satyavati has long been seen as a fisherwoman who manipulated her way to the Kuru throne. A selfish unashamed woman who wasn’t satisfied merely by being the queen but made her to-be-born sons the heirs to the throne of Hastinapur instead of crown Prince Devavrata. Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan, in her The Girl who Swam with Fishes from the series  Girls of The Mahabharata weaves the story of how a fish-smelling girl of divine birth, raised in a fisher community, finds her way to her Destiny. It shows the story of Matsyagandhi evolving into Satyavati of The Mahabharata . The contemporary storytelling makes the book distinct from the poetic language of an epic. At the same time, the Vedic setting and time period isn't forgotten as the modern storytelling describes a span of year in terms of rain and that of a month in terms o...

Dear family, friends, boyfriend, girlfriend, Padosi, Dur Baithe Rishtedaar etc. If you want to be scared for my life, then please be. If you think there are more rapists than bad drivers on the road, then maybe you’re right. If you think living alone has a greater chance of me being harassed, then maybe you’re right. If you think my partying in a bar is signaling guys for sex, then maybe you’re right.

When you do not have anyone’s consent for a physical relationship and still go on with it, it’s a rape. But what do you say it when you have the consent and yet you’re called a rapist. With the frequent news of rapes that are happening every hour in this country, can we believe in a man who has been falsely accused of being a rapist? Who do we choose to believe? Who becomes the victim here? The man or the woman?