Hello, guys! We are happy to have author Kavita Kane with us on the blog today. She has answered our questions in an interesting Author Interview. Before we get to that, let's take a look at Kavita's book, Karna's Wife: The Outcast's Queen.
GOODREADS SUMMARY:
Karna's Wife: The Outcast's Queen tells the extraordinary story of Karna, the unsung hero of the Mahabharata, through the eyes of his wife Uruvi, bringing his story to the reader from a unique perspective.
An accomplished Kshatriya princess who falls in love with and dares to choose the sutaputra over Arjun, Uruvi must come to terms with the social implications of her marriage and learn to use her love and intelligence to be accepted by Karna and his family. Though she becomes his mainstay, counselling and guiding him, his blind allegiance to Duryodhana is beyond her power to change.
The story of Uruvi and Karna unfolds against the backdrop of the struggle between the Pandavas and the Kauravas. As events build up leading to the great war of the Mahabharata, Uruvi is a witness to the twists and turns of Karna's fate; and how it is inextricably linked to divine design.
A splendid saga from the pages of the Mahabharata, Karna's Wife: The Outcast s Queen brings its characters alive in all their majesty.
An accomplished Kshatriya princess who falls in love with and dares to choose the sutaputra over Arjun, Uruvi must come to terms with the social implications of her marriage and learn to use her love and intelligence to be accepted by Karna and his family. Though she becomes his mainstay, counselling and guiding him, his blind allegiance to Duryodhana is beyond her power to change.
The story of Uruvi and Karna unfolds against the backdrop of the struggle between the Pandavas and the Kauravas. As events build up leading to the great war of the Mahabharata, Uruvi is a witness to the twists and turns of Karna's fate; and how it is inextricably linked to divine design.
A splendid saga from the pages of the Mahabharata, Karna's Wife: The Outcast s Queen brings its characters alive in all their majesty.
BOOK LINKS:
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Am a senior journalist, currently the Features Editor at Pune Mirror. Before this was working with Magna magazines and DNA.
Am a post-graduate of Eng Literature and Mass Communications and have done my schooling and college at Pune - St Helena's and Fergusson College respectively!
Am a mother of 2 teen aged daughters and my husband is a mariner and though my childhood was essentially in Patna, Delhi and towns of Bihar, have been in Pune for the past thirty years.
AUTHOR INTERVIEW:
Hi Kavita, welcome to The Readdicts! It's great to have you here on our blog and we hope you have a nice time chatting with us.1) Tell us a little bit about yourself.
Kavita: Am a senior journalist who knows nothing else but to write ...besides being a mother to two teen daughters, a rottweiler and a cat and wife to a mariner who's again currently at sea.
2) Tell us about your book, Karna's Wife.
Kavita: To cut a long (epic!) story short, Karna's Wife is about the Mahabharata as seen through the eyes of the wife of Karna - who is one of the most intriguing characters in Indian mythology. No one knows much about him - he is mostly seen as Arjun's rival and Duryodhan's loyal ally. In fact, I often got this response -' oh was Karna married??' He seems to have this tag of the elusive bachelor! But, he was very much a 'happily' married man with eight sons....and to know more you will have to read the book...
3) Are you an avid reader?
Kavita: Yes thanks to be born into a family of manically voracious readers and being a student of English Literature.
4) What are some of your favourite books and who are some of your favourite authors?
Kavita: I don't subscribe the word 'favourite' to either books or authors - as that would be plain unfair to all what and whom I have read. Each book I have read has had its own charm. As did the author.
5) Did you always want to be a writer?
Kavita: Writer - definitely yes - as early as when I was in Class VII. I later took it up as a profession and now this book ..!
6) How did the idea to write Karna's Wife come up? Have you always been interested in the Mahabharata?
Kavita: Like, in most Indian homes, I was brought up on the various stories of both the epics. My father handed me C Rajgopalachari's Mahabharat and Ramayan when I was in Class VI and I was completely enchanted. The Amar Chitra Katha was my staple diet, a favourite vacation-read my cousins, my sisters and I used to devour and fight over many a times.
The two characters whom I was quite besotted about were Bhishma and Karna - both were tragic - strong yet so vulnerable. And of course, so righteous. It was their moral dilemmas that I found so appealing and I used to often wonder with what moral grace Karna faced his wife after he returned home from the disgraceful 'vastraharan' incident in which he played a dubious role. How did his wife react to his moral downfall? I checked up and couldn't get any satisfying answers and decided I could well develop this into an entire story. And that was how the book was born...
7) What do you like to do when you are not writing?
Kavita: Watch films! After books, it's cinema and the theatre which I cannot resist.
8) I assume you like mythology. What are your most favourite Indian mythological reads?
Kavita: I am completely fascinated by mythology - be it Indian or Greek - and read it more as a subject than a casual read. It was as a student of English literature that I got first introduced to Greek mythology - invariably, there used to be these literary references to them and I used to end checking up a heap of reference books! That's how I got hooked. I especially love reading essays by scholars. I don't perceive them as some specific genre in writing but more as an interesting matter to read.
9) What advice would you give to young aspiring Indian writers?
Kavita: Besides the language, what is important is how you tell your story . An author has to be a master story teller.
10) If a Bollywood movie were to be made on Karna's Wife, which actor would you like to see play the role of Karna?
Kavita: Probably Hrithik? He has that golden luminosity associated with Karna.
Thank you so much for spending time with us today, Kavita. We wish you all the very best for everything ahead.
And thank you readers, for stopping by, and happy reading!
I suck at Mahabharata too and J says yay for Hrithik! Thanks for stopping by, Aman. :)
ReplyDeleteOh my! I remember learning about Mahabharata and Ramayana long time ago. Wow I feel old. I have never read it though. I guess it's more likely that I'll read some book that tells about it than Mahabharata itself xD Thanks for sharing this and great interview Sarika :)
ReplyDeleteYou have heard of it! Wow, I am amazed. Thank you, Tanja. :)
DeleteAll the versions of the Mahabharata that I have read till date are from the viewpoint of the Pandavas in which they have been given a Demi god status. This book is brilliantly written from Uruvi's point of view and shows the struggle between the Pamdavas and the Kauravas as cousins, as contenders for the throne as well as enemies. It throws such an important light on the status of women those days where rape and violence of women was seen as perfectly acceptable. Written very beautifully, the author uses simple language and has narrated the Mahabharata to the reader in its most lucid and human form.
ReplyDelete