Review Of 'Goddess Of The River': The Currents Of Choice

Vaishnavi Patel바카라™s book approaches the Mahabharata from a different viewpoint바카라”mainly that of Ganga Devi, who came to earth and due to a sage바카라™s curse and became a mortal with the task of rescuing eight godlings. Readers of the Mahabharata are aware that the Ganga came down to earth, brought by the prayers of Raja Bhagirath who needed the river to free his ancestors바카라™ souls. This aspect is missing from Patel바카라™s narrative; instead, we have the story of a wilful river controlled within her banks by Shiva, who fears for the world if she is allowed to rampage unchecked. The narrative is slow, presumably to match the pace of the fettered river. However, it picks up when Ganga becomes a beautiful mortal woman and fascinates Raja Shantanu, who is propitiously sent to the river bank near Hastinapur by the very sage who cursed her and the godlings. 

What follows is the story of how Ganga gives birth to the eight immortals and manages to free the souls of seven by drowning them at birth. However, Shantanu catches her in the act of killing the eighth and rescues the child, Devavrata, who grows up to becomes Bhishma of the unbreakable oath. The moments between the mother and her son are tenderly told and Patel tries to bring some kind of freedom to the movements of a river goddess who does not have the expected kind of shape shifting power to materialise wherever she chooses. This requires a lot of writing on Patel바카라™s part to try and get the concept across to the readers, and this is not always successful. 

When Bhishma and the Kurus enter the narrative, the story becomes more vivid 바카라“ Patel traverses the terrain of Yudhisthira바카라™s gambling and Draupadi바카라™s disrobing. She also highlights the fact that Bhishma chooses an inflexible honour over dharma which eventually results in his failure to defend women like Amba and Draupadi, leading to his death through adharma. 

Patel has to grapple with difficult concepts: how does Krishna manage to combine mortality and godhood for example, or how can she bring new light to an epic that has been read in countless versions by readers worldwide? She also has to show that Bhishma바카라™s decisions lead to more conflict and ultimately, despite his opposition to the war between the Padnavas and the Kauravas, he allies himself with the wrong side. To keep the Ganga continuity, Patel바카라™s narrative goes back and forth between the river goddess and her son in the end. Ganga remains more of a watcher than a contributor to the narrative except in the ways an actual river can contribute, flooding, transporting, causing storms and more. 

The different chapters cover Ganga, Jahnavi and Bhishma that begin 바카라˜decades before the war바카라™ and move on to 바카라˜many years before the war바카라™, telling us that the war is a given; and that despite the fact that there are so many gods and demi gods involved, it is, in the end, a matter of karma created by personal decisions. Krishna tells Ganga as much while floating on her waters. What you decide is how your life and death play out and it may even affect the bond between a loving goddess mother and her son. 

A familiarity with the Mahabharata바카라™s many stories is a must for the reader 바카라“ Patel seems to assume that readers will know what she is referring to in her many interweaving of other stories.  Ganga comes into contact with many characters in one way or the other in her role as river. Though many may not know that the Kurus did not have any Kuru blood since Shantanu바카라™s second son was unable to father children. The plethora of characters and the crisscrossing of their different stories may make it difficult for unfamiliar readers who would possibly put it down as fantasy fiction, part of a genre that is increasingly popular these days. In the Indian context, the story is comprehensible since everyone knows exactly what will happen and only wants to know how Patel will deal with each episode.