Shikhandi: And Other Tales They Don't Tell You - Softcover

Pattanaik, Devdutt

Softcover

ISBN 10: 9383074841 ISBN 13: 9789383074846

Publisher: Zubaan Books, 2015

Synopsis

Patriarchy asserts that men are superior to women, feminism clarifies that women and men are equal, and queerness questions what constitutes male and female. One of the few people to talk frankly and sensitively about queerness and religion, celebrated Indian mythologist Devdutt Pattanaik explains that queerness isn’t only modern, Western, or sexual. Rather, by looking at the vast written and oral traditions of Hinduism, he finds many overlooked tales with queerness at their center, some over two thousand years old. There’s Shikhandi, who became a man to satisfy her wife; Mahadeva, who became a woman to deliver her devotee’s child; Chudala, who became a man to enlighten her husband; Samavan, who became the wife of his male friend―and many, many more.
In Shikhandi, and Other Tales They Don’t Tell You, Pattanaik recounts these stories and explores the importance of mythologies in understanding the modern Indian mindset. Playful, touching, and sometimes disturbing, when Shikhandi’s stories are compared with their Mesopotamian, Greek, Chinese, and Biblical counterparts, they reveal the unique Indian way of making sense of queerness.
 
“Pattanaik is a master storyteller” ―Bibek Debroy, translator of The Bhagavad Gita

About this title

About the Author:

Devdutt Pattanaik is a best-selling Indian author, speaker, and mythologist. He has written over twenty-five books and four hundred articles on mythology for people of all ages.

Review:

"Pattanaik is a master story-teller" - Bibek Debroy, translator of The Bhagavad Gita

About this edition

• Publisher: Zubaan Books
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 9383074841
• ISBN 13: 9789383074846
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 192