Title: The Curse of Gandhari

Author: Aditi Banerjee

Publisher: Bloomsbury India

Published: 10 September 2019

Genre: Mythological fiction

Source: Review copy

My Rating: 4/5

Blurb:

Gandhari has one day left to live. As she stares death in the face, her memories travel back to the beginning of her story, to life’s unfairness at every point: A fiercely intelligent princess who wilfully blindfolded herself for the sake of her peevish, visually-impaired husband; who underwent a horrible pregnancy to mother one hundred sons, each as unworthy as the other; whose stern tapasya never earned her a place in people’s hearts, nor commanded the respect that Draupadi and Kunti attained; who even today is perceived either as an ingratiatingly self-sacrificing wife or a bad mother who was unable to control her sons and was, therefore, partly responsible for the great war of the Mahabharata…

In this insightful and sensitive portrayal, Aditi Banerjee rescues Gandhari from being reduced to a mere symbol of her blindfold. She builds her up, as Ved Vyasa did, as an unconventional heroine of great strength and iron will – who when crossed, embarked upon a complex relationship with Lord Krishna, and became the queen who cursed a God…

Among the two great epics of Indian mythology, it is always Mahabharata that fascinates me. Aditi Banerjee’s The Curse Of Gandhari is naught but a retelling of the great epic Mahabharata. The book is in the point of view of Gandhari. For those who don’t know who Gandhari is, I would like to start with saying a bit about her. Gandhari was the princess of Gandhara, wife of the blind prince Dhirithurastra and the mother of the Kauravas. She was an ardent devotee of Lord Shiva.

The story started off with Gandhari, Dhirithurastra and Kunti spending their last day of life on earth in the forest. While Dhirithurastra and Kunti had prepared themselves to embrace the afterlife, for it will put an end to all of their sufferings and will offer them the peace that their earthly life had failed. Gandhari, a grieving mother who had lost one hundred of her sons in the Kurukshetra war, was not yet ready. Thus she had taken a trip down memory lane from the princess who had vowed to blindfold herself, to the Queen who cursed the God.

Unlike her treacherous brother, ambitious husband and her evil sons, Gandhari was a noblewoman who was good at heart. One can see how she always insisted her sons follow the path of dharma yet had failed drastically as she had no control over neither her husband nor her sons or her brother. The author had done justice to this remarkable character by laying stress on her emotions rather than justifying her actions and that’s what I liked most about this book.

This book has also made me think how different it would have been if Gandhari had not been vowed to blindfold herself. One hundred of her sons would not have met the fateful death if she had not relied on her treacherous brother Shakuni to look after them. Sometimes I even thought that after all, it was a family feud for the throne of Hastinapur that had caused the great war, Kurukshetra.

Overall, The Curse of Gandhari is truly a page-turner and a treat to all mythology lovers. A definite recommendation from my side if mythology is your favourite genre.

*A special thanks to Bloomsbury India for providing me with a copy of this book. All opinions are my own.*