Being a voice for women in epics

In the Skanda Purana is a tale of a dice game between Siva and Parvati. Siva, together with Vishnu, defeats Parvati. Angered, she walks away to Kashi, opens a kitchen and feeds the neighbourhood. A dismissive Siva, meanwhile, called everything including the game and Parvati a maya (illusion), leaving the world without rain or grain. He was stripped of his power, and the nature understood that pure consciousness was powerless without her. Realising his mistake and love for his wife, he begs her for sustenance. Parvati retorts, Dont say I am maya too. I matter. I am energy. I am life, and he replies, Im sorry, I didnt realise your importance. Then she goes back to live in Kailash with him. This is the crux of a story in which Parvati, here known as Annapurna, teaches a valuable lesson. While the moral could be interpreted as the spiritual world of Siva and the material world of Annapurna are important for life to thrive on, it also highlights the voice of a woman, who refuses to be dismissed and is the one who sustains life. The absence of female voices, their power, and capabilities in our stories is highlighted in each session conducted by storyteller Mahitha Ravilla. When you tell this story, it isnt just about gods, its about love, power, and respect emotions that we can all relate to. Suddenly, its not a thousand-year-old myth. Its something thats happened in your life, neighbours, or childs life, and it gives you a different perspective. Mahitha notes that most of our purakathas are told by men, for men, in a society run by men. Women are present, but their voices are muted. I asked myself, if a woman told the same story, without changing the action points, would it sound different?, she says. To find answers, she read translations of original texts and started filling the gaps by creating a space for women in these old stories. During Navaratri, she engaged with audiences in the city and beyond. Mahitha first took the stage in Mumbai as a spoken word artist in 2019. Her debut story, My Mother and I Have a Complicated Relationship, was as intimate and raw as untangling threads of motherhood and daughterhood. In 2020, during the pandemic Mahitha was back in her village, Ilayarasanendal, near Tirunelveli. She turned to the stories her grandmother once told, and to the texts she had read. Mythology became her new source to draw inspiration from. She promised herself that shed only tell a story if she could make her feelings about that character reach the listener. Then on, Mahitha began reclaiming space for women in purakathas . She insists her retellings arent religious, philosophical, or spiritual in nature, even if they feature gods. They come from a place of emotion, and that makes them relatable, softer, and more alive. Through her retellings that are contemporary and resonant, Mahitha is working towards a larger movement of womens fight for their agency. She says, We have very strong women in our puranas and epics. Their battles arent different from ours because women are still fighting. Probably their success rate is higher today, and their voices are amplified more today, but were still fighting the same battles. With each tale, Mahitha is gathering voices that have been left unheard, and amplifying them with urgency and tenderness.