Early Summer, Kanva’s Hermitage
I woke early the morning after a dream where I was running–through the groves surrounding the hermitage, at first, but then the trees closed together above my head and it was quite dark. Then I was in a room, a great hall with a high ceiling. The trees had turned to people, women dancing. Unsure of where I was, I tried to get their attention but they would not look at me. Their expressions were somber, faraway. I began to panic, screaming silently until I awoke. There was sun streaming onto me from an open doorway, and the day was already hot. How late had I slept? Still shaken from the dream, I sat up quickly and dressed, hearing the laughter of my friends from the grove outside my window. I’d promised to meet them to water the groves at sunrise, and now I was impossibly late. The fear heightened in me, along with a sense of guilt, and dread. I tried to quiet myself, but the feeling persisted.
I always felt adrift when Father Kanva was away. I was not alone, I had Gautami to take care of me, and Anusuya and Priyamvada to keep me company, but there was a sense of insecurity that I found it difficult—almost impossible—to shake when Kanva was not there.
And, as it turned out, perhaps my sense of dread and anxiety was not altogether misplaced. I was not an intuitive girl despite my godly lineage and upbringing among sages and hermits, but sometimes I had senses and was proven right.
Too anxious to eat or drink, I rushed outside to join Anusuya and Priyamvada. I could see their saris flashing amongst the mango trees, bright fabrics outshone by the brilliant green leaves, the luster of the morning sky above the groves, the sweeping white-gold sun making the edges of the whole world shimmer.
“Hello!” I called, approaching them.
My friends turned to face me, and I saw that they were carrying the biggest watering pots, struggling to lift and bear them to the trenches between the young trees.
Guilt gave another thrust into my chest. “Oh, girls,” I said. “I’m so sorry, I slept. I have no excuses, I apologize.”
“Darling,” said Anusuya, “we don’t mind. It’s been brutally hard, but it’s better we do it than you. Poor thing, you already look exhausted and you’ve barely done more than step outside. I don’t believe Father Kanva loves you nearly as much as his precious trees, commanding you to water them without thinking of your complexion—you’re fragile as a jasmine flower.”
I shook my head, embarrassed now, and reached for Anusuya’s watering pot. I heaved it from her hold before she could protest and began to water the tree just beside me. My hands shook, but I forced a grin. “I love watering the trees,” I announced, “caring for them feels like caring for myself, or one of you. They’re my sisters.”
Anusuya just bit her lip and stole a glance at Priyamvada, who reached out to pat my arm and said, soft and nervous: “We already watered all of them, Shakuntala.” And I must have let my dismay show, because she quickly added: “We could water the ones who aren’t flowering, and it would be easier, and a true act of kindness because those trees don’t want or expect it.”
“Right,” I said, and relinquished the watering pot to her.
We walked beyond the flowering trees to those that had shed their blossoms weeks ago, and when we paused to begin watering I saw the gleaming sun-soaked underbrush behind us began to shake as if something heavy sat trembling there.
Panic unspooled through my stomach, arching through my chest and making my whole body tingle inside out as though in a fever. “Anusuya! There’s something in the bushes there,” I whispered, barely able to coax the words out.
“Where?” she said, charging toward the place I pointed to and kicking it with one bare foot. The branches quivered slightly at the impact but no other motion followed. “Nothing!” she announced. “What’s up with you, today? You’re in a state.”
I just shook my head. My chest felt tight, my face was breaking out into a cool sweat, and I turned to Anusuya, calling her over to me.
“What now, Tala?”
“My dress,” I sputtered, gesturing, but trying to speak calmly. “It’s been done up too tightly, I can scarcely get a breath in. Would you fix it for me?”
Anusuya burst out giggling, nudging Priya, who begun to fiddle with the ties on my bodice. “Your fault, Shakuntala,” she squealed, “you’re growing.”
“Shut your mouth,” hissed Priya albeit with a quick and mischievous glance at Anusuya.
Anusuya rolled her eyes. “You know I’ve got the same problem,” she said, “only worse.”
“I’ll fix it,” said Priya into my ear.
The dress now loosened, I tried to take longer breaths. I stood still for a moment, while Priyamvada and Anusuya looked on, worried.
And then, across from us the mango tree shielding the underbrush whose movement had frightened me earlier began to shiver again, long thin branches twitching like fingers.
“Priya! Anusuya! Look!”
“The wind, Tala,” said Priya. She grabbed my hand, and pulled me to stand next to her. I felt her warmth, her shoulder pressing into mine and my nervousness faltered and pulled back for a moment. “Now,” she said, “let’s think about something else. Look at the way that jasmine tree winds around the trunk of the mango, isn’t she beautiful?”
“Like a lady embracing her lover,” giggled Anusuya.
I looked, straining to see what they saw. The jasmine’s flowers were open, their perfume staining the space between us.
“You see it don’t you,” said Anusuya, half to herself. “You’re imagining it’s you—and your future husband.”
I flinched. “Speak for yourself.”
“Well,” soothed Priyamvada, still leaning hard against me, her arm cupping my shoulders. “There’s the spring creeper Father Kanva’s been fretting over! Oh my, look, she’s blossoming. See!”
“It’s out of season,” I replied. But she was right, buds edged apart all along the creeper, showing the tips of petals, pink and white.
“It’s out of season, so!” cried Anusuya. “So! Priya, you must remember—what Father Kanva told us? Before he left? That the vine is a symbol of Shakuntala, and if it blooms, then she will—”
“Marry,” finished Priya, squeezing my shoulders.
Marry, I thought, the word swelling in my mind the longer it hung there—impossible to speak aloud. Marry.
I turned away for a moment, trying to think of something else to say. I had parted my lips when, from across the grove, a bee appeared, streaking through the hot air in a fluid, steady line toward me. I screamed and leapt back, batting the air as the buzzing crescendoed and I could feel its tiny aggressive body hitting my hands and hair.
Desperately, I made to run across the grove, still flinging my arms about to shield myself.
“Tala!” screamed Priya.
“Shakuntala!” Anusuya echoed.
I heard them chasing after me, but I couldn’t stop running, flailing with my eyes hardly open, clinging to the trunks of trees to guide me.
My heart beat in my face, tears filled my eyes, and I wouldn’t have stopped at all if Priya hadn’t caught up with me, snatched my hand and made me stumble.
But I couldn’t look at her. The tears burned under my skin, making my features contort. I hung my head and she drew it onto her shoulder, letting me shake against her, as I tried to quell my sobs and found myself incapable. The bee had disappeared, but once I began crying I couldn’t and didn’t want to stop.
“I’m so—” I mumbled, “Can I tell you—”
“Who is it who dares attack an innocent hermit girl?”
The man’s voice, fiery and severe, cut through the grove like a lightning strike. We leapt apart, and I covered my tear-struck face with my hands, peeping through my fingers at the intruder.
“Oh,” breathed Anusuya, “Oh, sir. It was only a bee who frightened our friend.”
“Your friend,” repeated the man, eyes running over me.
He was tall, dark hair wind-tossed, scowling. He looked rich, aloof, powerful.
I lowered my hands, twisting them in my skirt.
“We welcome you, sir,” said Anusuya, the only one amongst us capable of speech. “Shakuntala, run inside and bring us some fruit for him, and we’ll wash his feet,” she finished, lifting up her watering pot.
I dashed away, feet pounding the hot grass, dizzy as I made my way inside. Nobody was there, so I filled a bowl with mango, oranges, papaya before dashing out again.
When I returned to the grove, the man was seated, his pants rolled up to his knees while my friends knelt in the grass beside him. They finished washing his feet, and I passed the bowl of fruit to Anusuya who laid it on his knees.
“Come,” said the man, gesturing at us. “Sit, sit. Sit in front of me.”
We obeyed. I, only to be near Priya and Anusuya again, and to feel Priya’s hand winding through mine. Not at all like a vine around a mango tree, but two vines meeting each other.
“Who are you, sir?” begged Anusuya, rapt.
The man’s gaze, still travelling across our faces, dropped immediately. He studied the fruit, wrapped one large hand around an orange. “I’ve come to speak with Father Kanva,” he replied quickly.
“You can’t,” replied Anusuya, “but,” and her gaze met mine, sparkling and naughty, “this is his daughter.”
The man frowned. I could feel his eyes on me again, but didn’t meet them. “Your friend is the daughter of a hermit?”
“Not his real daughter,” Anusuya rushed. “Shakuntala was abandoned when she was a baby, and Father Kanva raised her.”
The man’s face heated in a smile. He turned it toward me.
“What?” prompted Priyamvada.
“Are you all, as hermit girls, bound not to marry? Or—”
I snatched tighter to Priya’s hand. The whole day had felt like my dream, and I was only realizing it now—what was familiar and beautiful had become threatened, perverted somehow, and I had tried to run and been thwarted.
“Oh, Shakuntala’s not like us,” went on Anusuya, blithe and breathless. “She’s going to marry.”
The man’s smile grew, glowing so formidably I thought the sun would burst through it. My heart began to pound again. I leapt to my feet.
“Shakuntala?” said Priya.
“I can’t, I’ll, if you excuse me—” I spun away and began to walk, feet on the hot earth, one step after another. Perhaps I could not run away, but I could walk.
“Shakuntala!” cried Anusuya, sharply now. “You’re selfish, you’re disrespecting our guest. Come back.”
I faltered for a moment, took another step, and one more.
Then, suddenly, Priyamvada was at my elbow. “Tala?” she whispered.
I found her hand, but did not stop walking.
“Tala, please, something’s the matter with you.”
I kept walking, counting steps, until we were out of the grove and halfway to the house. Then I stopped and dropped her hand.
She was staring at me, her light brown eyes huge and steady in the direct sun.
“I can’t get married,” I said. The words stung in my mouth, making my cheeks flame, but I couldn’t unsay them. “I don’t want to marry. Anusuya does, and she wants me to want it. She sees the jasmine vine embracing the mango tree, the flowers blooming along the spring-creeper, and she thinks about marriage, whereas I—”
“You?” prompted Priya. “What do you think?”
“I don’t know what I think,” I managed. “And that frightens me, because all of a sudden everybody is thinking for me, and all I know is that they’re wrong. I don’t know anything beyond that, except that what they think I want is not what I want.”
Priya picked up my hand again, holding it between both of hers. She looked directly at me and I looked back. “Tala,” she said.
“I didn’t know my father said that about the spring creeper,” I breathed, afraid of crying again. “He never told me its blossoming was a sign for me.”
“Do you believe him?”
“I believe it could be a sign for me, but,” and I stopped, intertwining my fingers with Priyamvada’s, the heat blooming between us giving me courage. “I don’t see how the flowers signify marriage. You know there’s no mango tree near the creeper? It’s not like the jasmine.”
“No,” whispered Priya, waiting.
“No,” I repeated.
She smiled slightly, and turned her face away, staring toward the grove. “Shall we go back? I’m sure Anusuya’s perfectly happy without us.”
“No, we can go back,” I said, meeting her eyes. “I know what I think, now.”
Reflection
Shakuntala and her friends. painting by R. Varma.
How can a play where a woman’s name is the title not really ever illuminate or value her perspective? What role does perspective play in a story anyway? If Shakuntala’s story was to be retold from her point of view, would the story itself need to change in order to accommodate her strength and opinions? What exactly is “retelling”? What are the rules? How much reverence for the original does a retelling require? How much deviation is allowed?
Writing (or rewriting) a section of Kalidasa’s famous play, Shakuntala, was a wonderful, fascinating, and challenging experience and one that I ultimately chose because the play itself is a retelling of a much older story, part of the Hindu epic, the Mahabharata (composed by the sage Vyasa in the third or fourth century). Shakuntala (or, The Recognition of Shakuntala), written by Kalidasa approximately a couple hundred years later,tells the story of a king, Dushyanta, who while travelling on a hunting trip accidentally enters a grove owned by hermits, where he meets a girl named Shakuntala. She has been brought up by the sage, Kanva, and Dushyanta falls immediately in love with her. They marry, and he leaves her with a ring, promising to return for her and bring her back to his palace to be Queen. However when the sage Durvasa arrives and Shakuntala does not greet him because she is too lost in daydreams about her husband, he curses her so that Dushyanta will forget her—at least until she shows him the ring he gave her. Consequentially, Shakuntala, now pregnant with Dushyanta’s child, travels to find the king, though she loses her ring on the journey so is rejected and unrecognized by him. She is rescued from the insult by being transported to a heavenly mountain where she raises her child until being at last recognized by her husband, which results in a happy ending.
In my retelling of Shakuntala, as it would have been entirely impossible to attempt the whole play (or even an entire act), so I wrote a short story that covers much of what transpires in Act I, from Shakuntala’s perspective. This begins with a dream that, at least in mood, echoes the hunting scene at the beginning of the original play, although in my version it mostly functions as a mirror into Shakuntala’s state of mind as she approaches marriage—something that, while viewed as a cause for celebration by those she loves, terrifies her. My story follows Shakuntala as she waters the trees in the groves with her friends and struggles with anxiety in the lead-up to the king’s revealing of himself. Shakuntala’s sensitivity and intuition are both present in the original play, and through my retelling I have chosen to emphasize both as important aspects of her personality.
Roshni Rustomji’s article “From Shakuntala to Shakuntala: Strength Rather Than Beauty” discusses the variations in Shakuntala’s character in the Kalidasa play and the Mahabharata story, describing how Kalidasa’s Shakuntala is notably more timid and passive. In her words: “Kalidasa’s Shakuntala constantly needs others to protect and defend her. (Rustomiji, 47). I chose to embrace this timidity, while reframing it as legitimate anxiety that is a direct result of Shakuntala’s situation.
In Kalidasa’s play, the king announces “I will step behind a tree and see how she acts with her friends.” (Kalidasa, 9), and proceeds to spy on Shakuntala, commenting at length on her beauty and attractiveness in a way that is deeply uncomfortable. I chose to highlight this feeling of discomfort in my retelling, when Shakuntala senses the king’s presence, and the awareness terrifies her. She is scared while being unable to account for her fears, and the effect of king’s hidden presence mirror the effect of the looming, yet still invisible threat of marriage.
In retelling Shakuntala’s story I also added—or perhaps just highlighted—an exploration of anxiety, something I can relate to and felt fitted with Shakuntala’s character. I also explored the story’s possible queer undertones through Shakuntala’s relationship with Priyamvada which, in my version, is closer and outside the dynamics of the three girls’ friendships.
The act of retelling a story is not new—in fact it could be argued that every story is, in fact a retelling, and I’ve always been fascinated by retold stories—what new stories are hiding within the old? How does a simple shift in perspective alter a narrative in such profound ways? From Western fairytales like Cinderella story which has been adapted countless times to the many various film interpretations of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, I view retelling as inextricably linked to telling stories. Both draw from the wide and beautiful well of the human experience to create something beautiful and unique from experiences that most of us can share. Nothing is new, and yet everything is.
One last point I want to bring up, however, is the “who” involved in the retelling process: who gets to tell what stories, whose voices are privileged, and who has historically been given the right to speak for others. These are all essential questions that I tried to keep in mind throughout this project. I am aware that the Kalidasa’s Shakuntala is not one I have the right to retell. Firstly because my knowledge of its historical and social context is so limited, but also because Indian and Southeast-Asian voices are, due to racism and colonialism, not afforded the same privileges as white voices in modern Western/American society. This deep inequity means that while I don’t necessarily think it is wrong of me to write my own version of this story, I should definitely do so with an awareness of the context in which I am doing so. In other words, with sensitivity and an open mind–and maybe just in a classroom setting? I will also add that I am not at all sure what the “answer” is to any of these questions, just that they were present while I was writing and I wanted to make sure to include them in my reflection.
In conclusion, I learned so much from this project and developed an appreciation for the original text that I did not have after first reading it in class. And I am grateful for the chance to bring a female voice and perspective to the center of a narrative that largely seemed to silence women’s voices.
Works Cited
Kalidasa. Ryder, Arthur W. (translated). Shakuntala (Or The Recognition of Shakuntala). In parentheses Publications, Sanskrit Series, Cambridge, Ontario. 1999.
Rustomji, Roshni. “From Shakuntala to Shakuntala: Strength Rather Than Beauty.” Pacific
Coast Philology, vol. 10, 1975, pp. 45–52. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/1316383.
Ravi Varma. Shakuntala and Her Friends. Chromolithograph by R. Varma. oleograph, [after 1900]
Alcott, Louisa May. Little Women. Oxford University Press. Republished 2008.
Sprockets and Springes 