Paradox of choice

Kavita Kane recounts the story of the beautiful apsara, Menaka, who makes her life a series of options where she wins some and loses all.

We read about apsaras and gandharvas, but what do we know about them except that they are blithe spirits or sketchy characters we dismiss easily, Kavita Kane asks. The more she read about these characters, the more fascinating she found them, and realised that each had a story to tell. Kavita, a journalist-turned-writer, decided to tell them. At first, it was about Uruvi that came as the book Karna’s Wife: The Outcast’s Queen and then about Urmila, with the obvious title Sita’s Sister. The third woman she’s picked out of mythology is Menaka, which has now come out with the recently released novel Menaka’s Choice.

She is recounting here the story of a beautiful apsara Menaka and Rishi Vishwamitra. However, there is a lot more, because there is the liberty that comes with novelising a mythical tale. “This seduction of Vishwamitra by Menaka is a small mention in our mythology. I was more interested in these two characters than just this episode in their lives,” Kavita says.

Vishwamitra was originally a king whose thirst for knowledge made him give up his crown and kingdom, Kavita goes on. “He wanted to be a Rishi, the most enlightened one. He gave us the Gayatri mantra. However, he was also an egotist and his cause for downfall was an apsara named Menaka. That she fell in love with the man she was sent to seduce and destroy is the greatest irony for both of them because she was his doom, as well as the one who brought him back his glory. The liberties you mention is weaving fact and fiction, fleshing out the characters and events from their skeletal frame, and to create a believable narrative for a novel to be written about them.”

There is also the feministic touch that Kavita has given to the tale. “Menaka asks her questions and she wants her answers. She questions her role not just of an apsara but that of a lover, a wife, a mother and above all, a woman. The title of the book — Menaka’s Choice — is a paradox. Did Menaka have a choice, or was it her struggle against the choice-less life she was to lead She makes her life a series of options where she wins some, loses all. But she has no regrets.”