"Why do I as a goddess have to be partnered with another god, why should I have to marry him? I don't want to be known as someone's wife, some god's spouse, I am ME - I am Sarasvati, the goddess of learning and knowledge and music and the arts. I would certainly NOT like to be identified as just a consort."
Says Sarasvati early on in this book by Kavita Kané, who as an author, has brought the goddess to life in a manner that would have been absolutely unfathomable otherwise. We know of Sarasvati (spelling used as in the book) as the goddess we bow to for (as seen in the quote above) learning, knowledge, music, and arts. A goddess of light, dressed in white, Brahma's creation, his wife in an unusual marriage. But she is also a disappeared river, leaving thirsty, parched lands in her wake. She, who puts her foot down when men began to take her blessings for granted and turned them into curses. She is also a fierce woman, who wants to be known for herself, for her own gifts. She, Sarasvati, refuses to allow anyone, least of all a man, bind her and keep her as his own. As a stereotype. She has no use for matrimony and motherhood. She has no urge to fall in love. All Sarasvati wants is to be herself. To do what she is meant to do.
What Kavita Kané does to her protagonists, be it Satyavati or Sarasvati, is mould them with honesty. They are layered and raw, and the divinity in them transcends into glorious relatability to the reader's humanity. If at one point, the reader sees a woman dealing with a suitor, in another, they see a woman fighting for her own identity that's disentangled with that of a man's. Sarasvati is a firebrand, a woman for whom purity means being true to oneself. And isn't that one of the many, many reasons why we worship her as a goddess? And Kavita Kane brings out every facet of Goddess Sarasvati in full form, in poetic, beautiful language that mesmerizes from the start to the very end.
It does get a little repetitive and overdramatic at times, like a daily soap, but the overall effect is rather too fabulous for me to pay it more heed than the blip deserves.
All I'll say in parting today is that Kavita Kané has indeed given us a gift in the form of this beautiful, knowledgeable, poetic book about the goddess of knowledge and arts herself. And if you're a reader of mythological fiction, then you should partake in this magnificence. Without an iota of doubt.
Thank you, Penguin India for the review copy.