I think the idea of an antihero (or even former villain) ally or contact like Kaikeyi could be a really compelling side character, or even a main character in the right kind of story with the right kind of trappings: ‘No one’s asked me that before. There’s been a deluge of reporters in this house since then, but they’ve never been interested. They’ve always only wanted the malicious, vindictive queen, Kaikeyi.’ She cackles, her brilliant, polished white teeth glimmering.
I also think this concept of a queen being the shadow ruler is really promising, pulling the strings on her puppet husband—and the charioteer queen thing is just plain rad: ‘He could barely make a decision – it was I who had to guide him! Me! And even in war, I had to be there. Strategizing, whispering orders to him, to relay to his troops. I was there – check your archives. They called me “the charioteer queen”, like the queens of old who drove their husbands into battle.’
I love the hard, clean motivation here, how it makes Kaikeyi feel like an Indian-epic Kingpin or something: She turns to face me, her gleaming eyes the only source of light in her shadowed face. ‘I wanted to create the Ayodhya that I dreamed about, a nation unlike any other that existed in India.’The idea of a person being a noble hero at the cost of being a decent person is a great hook, too: Her voice is weary. ‘As for Ram, he is a living god to the people of Ayodhya. He holds himself to an impossible standard. He is a visionary in that sense. But he can’t see beyond himself – he’s obsessed with his actions, with his nature… striving to be the ideal. That can be another form of cruelty. He was cruel to his father, mother, me, his brothers and his wife.’
My favorite thing about this book, easily, is the way it transports all the trappings of the Ramayana to the modern world, like Michael Almereyda’s 2000 film version of Hamlet. This reads like a fallen Kennedy/Camelot saga: Ram’s wife is an enigma. He fought a war to win her back from Ravana, the king of Lanka, and brought her home to Ayodhya. I had seen the old film strip so many times. The images of Ram and Sita entering the city in a Cadillac, waving to admiring crowds. I had been there myself – a child, twelve or thirteen years old, seeing the young, shining couple for the first time. I remember being disappointed by Sita. Her legendary, dangerous beauty had faded with years in captivity.... Months later, she left. Rumors abounded.... And Ram had never taken another wife, much to Ayodhya’s disappointment.
This is often used as a trope for epic fantasy stories about royalty, but if freshened up with different genre elements and a new angle, I think it could still end up being an interesting dynamic for someone other than the MC—whether a friend or relative or enemy: ‘Ram had a higher calling—to serve his nation. That took priority over all his personal interests. And he’s done a damn good job of it too.’
Initially, I was thinking figuring out the emotional core issue/crux of this decision to stay could make for an interesting short story. But really, I think it could make for a great inciting incident/kick-off point for the bigger plot of a novel, too: Hanuman parachuted into Lanka to rescue her. She refused to leave with him. Why?
This raises a really interesting point, curse aside, and I like the idea of humanizing the literally-demonized Big Bad: ‘If it is as she claimed, Ravana must have been a gentlemen and not the villain he’s been made out to be, if he never touched her against her will in ten years.’
This one has so much potential—plant it in a genre setting, and I’m already sold: ...all these people who have been through dreadful things in their childhood, and have suppressed their memory. Then go in for hypnosis, and it all comes out.
Again, the promise of this mystery is really compelling, and I think the fact that this one’s just old enough to have been partially forgotten makes it even stronger: ‘Something never seemed right to me about it all. It always felt like either Sita wasn’t telling the whole truth, or a piece of the puzzle was missing... But does it really matter now?’
The way this plays with normal concepts of royalty is very nice: Her father was a king, but king of a small, impoverished kingdom where kings are little more than farmers, ploughing their own fields.
This comes from the cover of the authorized biography of Rama, featuring a great, flattering picture of him and a background with Lakshmana. I find the brotherly dynamic here, that codependent package-deal thing, really interesting: In the distance, the blurred figure of Lakshman is visible, many metres away. But, I can’t help noticing, Sita is not there.
I’m also a fan of the way this modern society has built up and sort of already mythologized Ravana enough that even cartoon villains call back to him: ...an old classic is playing: The Demon King. A crumbling hoarding displays a fiendish villain, who bears a striking resemblance to the late Ravana, despite the addition of bulging muscles, curving horns and talons.
The Swan Princess-like magical aspect of spells wearing off only at night is one of those oldie-but-goodie classics: An evil demon king rules over the forest, and under his tyranny, the sentient animals and trees of the forest are silent and immobile by day, but enjoy freedom at night.
Here, it’s not so much Sita’s difference from the others that interests me, but those others themselves—the demon wives: He’s fascinated by the young bride: she’s very different from his demonic wives. Intrigued by her frail beauty, he begins to stalk her.
I’m also intrigued by the idea of some kind of curse that keeps a villain within certain lines—not the same kind as seen here, but just in general: The demon king scoffs at this, but doesn’t take advantage of her because he’s been cursed by a yogini that if he ever takes advantage of an unwilling woman, he will die.
I’m a big fan of this concept, too—how it plays with the power of stories, and how they can influence and even make up society: I’ve seen and read and heard this story a hundred – no, maybe even a thousand – times, in newspapers, in the cinema, in advertisements, in books. There’s only one story worth telling in Ayodhya – the story of Ram, Sita and Ravana. The populace has lost its taste for anything else, anything different. This is the only tale that holds their interest. It’s the greatest tale ever told, and better still, it’s true. Real. It has heroism, beauty, love, ugliness, war, blood and loss – everything we need. We cannot accept anything different. It has crossed over the boundaries of the merely real, and been spun into fantasy. It is a fairy tale now. It is the monolith on which our state and our beliefs are built.
But is that what really happened?
I’m not a big fan of romance, but I do find couples doomed for unhappy endings interesting—not in a Romeo and Juliet way, but Daisy and Gatsby, Jake and Brett Ashley. This example especially reminds me of Joel and Clementine from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind: It had been so difficult. Those years were so difficult – exile, war, coming back. You know… sometimes, people change, places change. We changed… time does that. She wasn’t happy here, so she left. I don’t know why… but she left.’
I also love the idea of a character who fills the role of villain pretty nicely, but is also so honest that he can’t really be completely faulted, either: The powers-that-be are not pleased!’
‘Who are the powers-that-be? Ram?’ I pause and think. I don’t believe he would ask for my resignation. Ram is just too damned honest.
‘No. Not Ram.’
This setting, the milieu of it, are totally up my storytelling alley: He smiles wryly and leaves me alone with my drink.
I look around the bar. The seamy, unacknowledged, underbelly of our vigorously glorious state. It’s typically dark, so as to be unnoticeable from outside. Packing crates and sackcloth lie in wait in one black corner, in case of a surprise moral police patrol. A mixture of needs – outlawed cravings, illicit thrills, depression and loneliness – brings the crowd in every night. Everyone is nervous and shifty, eyeing their neighbours warily. Most of us keep to ourselves, but I recognize some of the faces scattered around the room. Mobsters and criminals rub shoulders with bleary-eyed bureaucrats and famous television actors.
This sounds like the perfect motivation for a really fun antivillain/villain-as-hero story: ‘...all we’ll ever be are footnotes or villains in history textbooks.’
Same as above: 'Kaikeyi wasn’t half bad – she was a mean old thing, but she wasn’t the tyrant she’s been made out to be. So you know, I wonder… about Ravana too. You know, they say, the victors write history. But I wonder what it looks like to the losers?’
Again, I love this take on a more nuanced, complex Ravana, and I think it’s a great villain blueprint: ‘I was surprised by Ravana. He was… unexpectedly gentle. Courteous, even. He remembered my father fondly – the only chief who had, until then, ever defeated him. They had been so impressed with each other that they had sworn lifelong friendship… He told me that I was like my father. He… he…’ he hesitates, and then whispers across the table, ‘he told me that my duty was to avenge my father’s death, not to side with his killers.’
I’m also intrigued by this idea of a Boogeyman-like horror figure actually being a sort of hero who protects or defends or ruthlessly cleans up a town. Kind of like some versions of the Headless Horseman, I guess: The Washerman. The stuff of nightmares, a myth turned into flesh. He is the one who stalks the streets of Ayodhya at night, dealing with crime and vice, making our city pure, white and clean.
Bibliography: The Missing Queen, by Samhita Arni.
Image Credit: Dark Indoors, by Pexels. Source: Pixabay.
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