Satyavati as a New Woman in Kavita Kané's The Fisher Queen's Dynasty

The moment we pronounce the names of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, the great epics of India, the great female characters like Kunti, Draupadi, Gandhari, Sita, Kaushalya, Sumitra, and Kaikeyi come to mind. It is said that many other female characters are no less important than they are, but they have not been given due place in retellings. Some contemporary Indian writers have begun giving voice to them in their retellings of The Ramayana and The Mahabharata. Kavita Kané is one of them, a fiction writer who gives lesser-known female characters a modern look in her retellings. Her keen interest lies in exposing these marginalised women characters, who have been largely unsung in Indian texts and creative writings. The present paper is based on Kavita Kané's The Fisher Queen's Dynasty, focusing on the character of Satyavati, the second wife of King Shantanu, the grand matriarch of the Kuru dynasty, and the first queen to rule Hastinapur, whose ambition is believed to have sparked the great war of Kurukshetra. Kané examines the black-and-white image of Satyavati in the Mahabharata and presents her as a grey character, referred to as the Fisher Queen. She hatches a graph of her journey from an abandoned fisher-girl child to the great matriarch of Hastinapur. She re-creates her personality as an assertive, sensible, courageous, and clearheaded woman who uses men's power to find her individuality in a male-oriented world and presents herself as an equal to men. The present paper deals with Satyavati, whose sharp wit and farsightedness subsequently shape the course of events and her destiny. It deconstructs the conventional image of Satyavati as a woman. It highlights her as a diplomatic, unapologetic, and bold woman, encompassing various roles such as daughter, wife, mother, and Queen.