DRISHANA KALITA’s subversive imagining of Soorpanakha’s version of the events that befell her, was one of the top 5 entries for June’s ‘Muse of the Month’ on Women’s Web. 

I am Soorpanakha. My name is synonymous with Sin for many, encased for eternity in the pages of the epic Ramayana. I am not the role model parents would point their daughters towards. Why is that? You may ask. Because I admitted to lust. My name was pitted against Sita, the embodiment of purity and womanly virtues. She was everything I was not and I was everything she was not.

She was beautiful and so was I. Do not believe those terrible sketches of me with sharp fangs and blood shot eyes. I was a peerless beauty with large fish shaped eyes, for which my mother had named me ‘Minakshi’ at birth. A single woman, independent enough to roam the forests alone. I was free.

My freedom was my sin, as was my open sexuality. I dared to invite a man, the exiled king of Ayodhya, to make love to me.

Read this wonderful retelling here.

And as a bonus, watch Harinarayana Ehat Edneer performing Shoorpanakha in Yakshagana – ‘Main swachhand bhraman karti hoon!” she declares – I wander at my will!