There is a particular silence that descends upon Banaras just before dawn—a moment when the river holds its breath and the city listens to itself. That silence, heavy with centuries of faith and fatigue, defines the mood Namita Gokhale captures in her literary work, Shakuntala: The Play of Memory.
This is not a myth retold; it is a woman remembered. Through the act of remembering her, the ancient city of Banaras—a place of death and renewal, story and superstition, and of women who recall what the world prefers to forget—begins to speak.
The City That Made Me
The author reflects on their personal journey in Banaras, where they arrived as an undergraduate at BHU, feeling “raw, unsure, carrying more questions than language.” They describe the city as a teacher: its alleys taught humility, its ghats offered meditations on impermanence, the river taught patience, and the sadhus taught irreverence.
Generations of writers have returned to Banaras, each uncovering a different truth: from Kabir and Tulsidas to modern voices like Premchand, Shiv Prasad Singh, Kashi Nath Singh, and Vyomesh Shukla. The list also includes the intellectual unease in Pankaj Mishra’s The Romantics and the lyrical ambivalence of Raja Rao’s On the Ganga Ghat. Gokhale is noted for joining this “long caravan of voices.” Her Shakuntala does not merely visit the city; it “breathes it, questions it, inhabits its pulse,” transforming the geography into a living memory.
Shakuntala Reimagined
Gokhale’s novel traces the life of a woman who refuses to be confined by the expectations of her time. Neglected and denied learning as a child, Shakuntala seeks wisdom through wandering and introspection. Her marriage to the merchant Srijan brings affection but leaves her with a sense of incompleteness due to childlessness and solitude. Her quiet rebellion begins when Srijan returns with another woman; she leaves him and finds love with a Greek trader, Nearchus, in Kashi. However, her restless spirit prevents her from being anchored even by this love. Pregnant and yearning for freedom, she attempts to cross the Ganga alone, where she meets a tragic end. The novel’s tragedy lies in the silencing of a woman who dared to think, desire, and defy.
Unlike Kalidasa’s heroine who patiently waits for recognition, Gokhale’s Shakuntala “has no patience for waiting.” She steps out of legend and into the messiness of real life—”flawed, curious, tenderly rebellious, modern in spirit.” Gokhale unseals her from scripture, allowing myth to collide with memory. The novel’s true landscape is remembrance, written “like someone tracing old scars under candlelight,” where memory is not gentle, but “bleeds, heals, and bleeds again.”
Myth, Memory, and the Woman’s Voice
Gokhale’s most subtle achievement is unfastening the myth from its patriarchal bindings. Her Shakuntala does not wait for recognition; she “names herself before anyone else does.” The novel thus becomes a reclaiming, asking how stories turn women’s silences into symbols. Through Gokhale’s gaze, the ancient myth holds a mirror to modern times.
The Pulse of Banaras
In Gokhale’s portrayal, the river Ganga is a character, watching and remembering, while the ghats serve as both “stage and graveyard.” The author writes with an intimate knowledge of the city’s textures—the sound of temple bells, the ash on a pilgrim’s forehead, the rustle of women’s gossip. Banaras is presented not as exotic, but as “exhausted, enduring, human.”
The reviewer concludes that Gokhale’s prose skillfully balances lyricism with lucidity, making the writing feel “lived.” Shakuntala: The Play of Memory is praised as among the finest literary meditations on Banaras in recent memory, reminding the reader that the city, like memory, “can never be contained, only revisited, each time with a different ache.”
With input from TNIE
For more details: Navamalayalam.com
