Defamiliarizing women's self in Trisha Das' Historical Romances

Abstract

The majority of Indian literature works make references to myths and history. The common consensus is that myths are the rich source of cultural past, expectations, qualms, and emotions of iconic characters and events that every generation of writers aims to extract, reinvent, and rework. Myths, on the other hand, frequently support sexist ideas about women's voices and representations, which tend to minimize women's voices across the canon of Indian literature. Feminist Revisionist Mythmaking is a feminist technique that first appeared in the 20th century and aims to update how women are portrayed in myths from a feminist perspective.  It enables female authors to rework and reinterpret how mythical female characters are portrayed, which consequently helps them to transcend gender norms and rectify a canonical legacy that is dominated by patriarchal ideals. Young Indian feminist author and documentary filmmaker Trisha Das regularly uses the feminist revisionist mythmaking technique in her works of fiction to depict oppressed women in strong relations and as being stuck in their gender roles as a result of patriarchal narratives.  This research paper aims to analyze Trisha Das' revisionist mythmaking technique in his rewriting of the famous epic The Mahabharata. It aims to show how, by reimagining the female character from the epic The Mahabharata original tale, it challenges the demonization of female power, provides a voice to women who are frequently subjugated in patriarchal traditions, and defamiliarizes women self through the representation of mythological figures.