Title : Karna’s Wife – The Outcast Queen
Author : Kavita Kane
Genre : Mythology
Pages : 318
“Princess, you have decided to follow the hard path. I cannot promise you the life a royal princess deserves,’ he began slowly. ‘I am a wandered myself, stuck in an eternal search. I am a vagabond who doesn’t know where I am going. My past beckons my present, but I can see only a blurred future. All my life, I have been slighted as a person of low birth- and the stigma will rub off on you as well. Yet, I am not ashamed of who I am…”
-Karna
Introduction
Uruvi, The Princess of Pukeya comes to the Kuru Dynasty to spectate the archery competition held between The Kuru Princes i.e., The Gauravas and The Pandavas. She visits along with her godmother Kunti, the mother of the Pandavas. She has a history of playing and fighting with the Pandavas and the Kauravas respectively her entire childhood. The Pandava prince Arjuna who happens to be the star student of Guru Dhronacharya maintains an upper hand throughout the competition. When Arjuna was named as the best archer in the world at the end of competition, Karna steps in to challenge Arjuna for a battle to showcase his superiority in the field. As Arjuna was on the verge of losing the battle to Karna, the nobles stands up to question Karna of his birth. The mysteriously talented archer Karna, discloses his identity as the son of a charioteer, who falls in the Sutaputra community (lower caste). Hearing this the Pandavas make fun of Karna and Arjuna declines to fight with a Sutaputra. Irrespective of being a valiant valour and an exceptional archer, Karna has always been treated egregiously by the society. To prove and to earn a status for himself, he strives hard every single day to showcase his ability but was repeatedly denied of that luxury. This forces Karna to hate everything and everyone. When Karna was facing the biggest humiliation of his life in that competition, Dhuryodhana immediately comes to the rescue of Karna and makes him the king of Anga without a seconds thought. That is when their friendship blooms, that is when Uruvi falls madly in love with Karna. And that is when Kunti sees the armour and earring of her abandoned illegitimate child on Karna’s possession. She identifies him as her first born then and there yet she remains quite for the sake of her futile honour.
After this incident Uruvi can hardly not think about Karna, when her parents ask her consent for the arrangement of swayamvaram, she intimates her father to invite Karna and express her desire to marry him. All her close allies stands against her will, but her parents finally gives in to her wish respecting their only daughter’s feelings. On the day of the swayamvaram everybody expects Uruvi to garland Arjuna as her husband just like Draupadi did but this swayamvaram was an exact opposite of Draupadi’s where Karna was deprecated and Arjuna got to marry Draupadi. Yet another humiliation in the hands of Arjuna had damaged Karna’s ego deeply but Uruvi’s swayamvaram nullified the imbalance in the ego clash. All the other participating kings and Prince agitates on seeing Uruvi’s choice, when things were about to go out of hands Krishna intervenes and settles the problem. Whereas the real problem starts only after the marriage, all her friends and family whom she considered as her trusted allies mocks and alienate her since her status has changed from Princess of Pukeya to The Outcast Queen. Sooner Uruvi gets accustomed to the situation and the love between Karna and Uruvi blossoms into something beautiful and epic. Uruvi constantly acts as Karna’s conscience by pointing out whenever he is wrong, at the same time she also understands him and be there for him through thick and thin. She persistently disapprove Karna of his friendship with Duryodhana but he had his own reasons and stayed loyal to his friend which destroyed him.This book tells the story of the Unsung hero of Mahabharata and goes hand in hand with the original version meticulously by moderately injecting few unknown and forbidden facts of the story. Does this re-telling from the loosing side has the capacity to slightly modify the perspective of the readers towards this great epic and stirs up the settled wind ?
“Karna each day I live in the fear that I shall lose you…..” she whispered brokenly.
“You will lose me only through death, Uruvi” he added calmly, drawing her close “Through nothing and nobody else”
Review
Karna’s wife : The Outcast Queen is one of the finest interpretation of Mahabharata in the modern era. The story is narrated shrewdly from the perspective of Uruvi. The writing style was the most endearing thing in this book. The way Kavita Kane had penned down each and every sentence were remarkably incredible. The words are woven skillfully and the standard of her writing is so high and outstanding. Ms.Kane is a kind of author who increases the level of the yardstick of Indian writings with her every new work. However the beginners might find the language quite difficult because of the vocabularies but the usage of those words were absolutely necessary for this book. The character development of Uruvi was rational on all aspects. Uruvi is a shrewd woman who will not hold herself back from questioning the wrongdoings whosoever it may concern. Certain controversial decisions made by the characters like Kunti and Bhishma are pinpointed and interrogated unflinchingly. The emotional distress and helplessness Uruvi undergoes when the unfortunate future of her husband dance in front of her was clearly comprehensible. Even though it’s a story of Karna’s wife, it enumerates Karna’s character from a very close observation. Since Karna is a silent and aloof person acquainting with him from Uruvi’s point of view felt real and proximate. This book shows how Karna was the best person in Mahabharata without a doubt, he was the only person who followed his dharma without bending the rules as and when required. The curses of Karna which he inherited for his honest and innocent mistakes, coming back to him at crucial times were extremely heartbreaking. This book also ephemerally touches the most debated topic of Draupadi’s unrequited love towards Karna. That mixed feelings Uruvi has for Draupadi makes Uruvi akin to any jealousy wife. Though she standing up to Karna for the disgrace inflicted on Draupadi made it clear Uruvi is an unsurpassable woman without a single bad bone in her body. The character development of Karna was also sagacious and noteworthy. Uruvi’s conversation with Bhanumati and Dhuryodhana was the best piece of the book, it revealed the kind of unadulterated love Dhuryodhana had for Karna which had been regularly question-marked about. The pure and unique friendship between Ashwatthama and Karna too was also manifested ideally.
“Duryodhana was doomed before he was even born ….. he was born a child of hatred and lives to hate …..”
-Karna
My views
I thoroughly enjoyed the book. I loved all the characters especially Karna, Uruvi and Dhuryodhana. Karna has always been my favorite hero since childhood, I’m really happy that he got such an amazing book for himself. This book is like a tribute to the tragic hero who has been undermined for so long. He is the epitome of friendship, loyalty, dharma and sacrifice. And Uruvi ,I loved her boldness in questioning all the wrongdoing. Finally thank you Kavita Kane for giving the love and respect he deserves and also thank you so much for focusing on a forbidden character of Uruvi and bringing this brave woman alive in front of us. There is no minus point in this book, I loved everything about this book right from the cover to the last page. Kavita Kane is undoubtably The Queen of Indian Mythology.
I totally recommend this book to all of you. Most importantly if you are into mythology then there is no point in wasting time, go right now and grab this book on my favorite hero Karna. Give him the attention and love that he rightfully deserves. I’m pretty sure you guys will also love this book as much I love it. And don’t forget to let me know what do you think about this wonderful book.
My rating for this book is 5/5
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Happy Reading Folks !!!
