9.6 Forget the Pandavas, Satyavati Ran the Show! ft. Rupeen Popat

What if the most powerful character in the Mahabharata was a boatwoman?

In this episode of Books & Beyond, Tara sits down with debut author Rupeen Popat to explore his novel Satyavati, a bold retelling of the Mahabharata’s origin story through the eyes of a woman history forgot. Satyavati begins as a ferrying boatwoman, but her courage and resilience transform her into the queen who steered the fate of kingdoms.

Rupeen takes us behind the scenes of his lifelong fascination with Indian epics, sharing his research process, stepping into the shoes of Satyavati, and deep dives that brought this book and the morally complex world of Hastinapur to life. From Bhishma’s unbreakable vows to Ganga’s enigmatic actions, the episode explores the conflicts, morally grey areas, and leadership lessons these timeless stories hold for readers today.

He also opens up about his publishing journey with Jaico, what makes Indian mythology different than Western, and hints at the next books in the series that will shine a light on other overlooked characters. If you’ve ever wondered what really shapes history, or simply love epic storytelling, you won’t want to miss this episode.

Books and TV shows mentioned in the episode:

1. Mahabharat (1988)
2. Game of Thrones (2011)
3. The Lord of the Rings (Film trilogy)
4. How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

‘Books and Beyond with Bound’ is the podcast where Tara Khandelwal and Michelle D’costa uncover how their books reflect the realities of our lives and society today. Find out what drives India’s finest authors: from personal experiences to jugaad research methods, insecurities to publishing journeys. Created by Bound, a storytelling company that helps you grow through stories. Follow us @boundindia on all social media platforms. 

Transcript

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This episode is part of our brand new series with Jekko Publishing House. She was a boat lady, a lower caste, a lower status in society. She was a modern-day Uber driver, shall we say. Hi everyone, today we have with us Rupin Phopat who's talking about his debut novel, Sapyavati, the queen who shaped the destiny of the Kurus and it is the origin story of the Mahabharata. But before we dive in, don't forget to follow and rate us on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, the easiest way to help us bring more amazing authors and conversations your way. So I'm very very excited about this episode because I love mythology and I had heard about the story of Satyavati before but I was very excited to read it in such detail. So the story begins with Satyavati whose father has prophesied that she will be a queen and she keeps hearing that and he keeps calling her my little queen. But all she does is she spends her days ferrying passengers up and down the river. Till one day the handsome king Shantanu shows up. But it's not all a fairy tale and this is one of those myths that has family ties and twists, demigods, vows and a lot of interesting lessons along the way. And the main question is to what extent will one go to save one's family? And of course, you guys know I love female protagonists and what really drew me to this book is that the show of her strength. So can't wait to discuss all of these things with you. Welcome, Rupin. Thank you very much, Tara. It's really nice to be here. That's a lovely introduction. Thank you. So I want to start with learning a little bit more about you because you've been studying the Ramayana and the Mahabharata since your childhood and teaching it since 1997. So can you talk me through how you first got interested in these epics and how have you been able to sustain your interest in them all these years? Well, I mean, that's going back a long way now. So I pretty much grew up on these stories that were already narrated to me as a child or a baby, you know, by my mother, my grandmother a little bit. And back then in the early 80s, I'm really showing my age now, we had VCRs. We didn't have automatic content available to us. And we only had like one or two video cassettes of anything that we could watch. And one of them was a production done in the early 1970s, I believe, called Sita Swayamva, which explained the story of the Ramayana from the beginning to Sita's wedding, essentially. And that really gripped my attention as a child with interest. The second video we had was Superman Part Three. So I'm seeing these larger-than-life characters that are going around helping people, doing good things, doing the right thing. And it's just heroes, right? So from a young age, that really took interest in me. The third video cassette we had was Ram Ghata that was done in London by Murali Bapu. And later on, I started following Murali Bapu and listening to his Ghatas. And I did that since the age of 16 for more than 25 years now. And I've gone to various parts around the world, learning about the Ramayana and Mahabharata. I've been to Hastinapur, Kurukshetra. I've been to Kailash Mantra, Madrinath, a lot of the Shivlings. But also a lot of other places around the world, like Jerusalem, all in the name of really studying this. And teaching it is a bit flattering. Essentially, I started teaching these stories to my cousins, to my brothers, to family friends, to the point where people were calling me up saying, could we do a class with you? And I was unofficially doing this. And I'm an entrepreneur. I've got a number of businesses. And that's been my primary focus in life. And I kind of started thinking to myself that I'm very fortunate to have been a student of Bapu and to be learning this for so long and to have the knowledge that I do. But how can I pass that on to a wider audience, really? And that is a very small nutshell of how I came to start writing this book. I mean, there's different aspects of that, different layers, different reasonings as well. So I think all of us have grown up with Mahabharata and Ramayana. And I also remember watching it on TV. It used to come on TV, these episodes of the Ramayana. I think everyone has just been fascinated by it since forever. And it's endlessly fascinating because there's so many characters. Now coming to Satyavati, choosing her, we don't read much about her in other books. Or we don't really understand her role in the entire story. She's kind of like a forgotten character. So how did you first come across this character? And why did you choose her out of everyone to write about? So yeah, that's a good question. I mean, she's definitely not one of the major characters. And my question is, why isn't she really? Because she's the mother of Ved Vyas. She's the direct grandmother of Pandu and Dhritarashtra. And the direct grandmother of all the Kauravas and Pandavas. And essentially, there's so many incidents throughout a few generations where there's a fork in the road. It could have gone one way or the other. But essentially, all roads led to Kurukshetra. So one of the direct ones that happened before Kurukshetra was, the big incident was the disrobing of Draupadi. Before that, there was the house of wax that was designed to assassinate the Pandavas. Now, where's the first point of the story where things started to go one way or the other? If you go before the introduction of Satyavati, Nandaputra Bhishma, known as Devrat at that point in time, was supposed to be the king. He would have been a fantastic king, the ideal king, that Hastinapura needed and wanted. And it was a match made in heaven. Satyavati shows up and she's quite blamed. The reason I think she's blamed is I think she gets a lot of blame for what happens to some degree. So they want to just forget about her and concentrate on the bigger incidents later on. Because I feel as though that it's a snowball effect that starts from here, from a pebble, that rises all the way to the wall over time. And Satyavati's father essentially used her as his bargaining chip or pawn to seize power, not for himself, but for his descendants, for his bloodline. And actually, her father's even more forgotten than she is. So who's the real villain here, her or her father? And I really think it's her father because he's the one that used her as a chip. She didn't have much of a voice at that stage. But her voice definitely grows through her journey, in my opinion. And just being the mother of Ved Vyas alone, I think, is honourable enough. Gundi gets a lot of honour, but there's some things that she did that were questionable. Satyavati, I felt as though throughout her journey, when she became a queen, people say she was ambitious. I don't think it was ambitious. I think it was actually just trying to survive. It's more of a survival story. And that built resilience over time and wisdom over time as well. Because she was definitely a fish out of water, becoming a fairy lady to a queen. But the growth she had to have done in that period, she had to really step up her game, right? And I think that she must have had a lot of growth over time there, basically. So therefore, I think that this is a character that's worth talking about a bit more. I mean, she also married King Shantanu, whose first wife was the River Ganga, the mother. She had some pretty big shoes to fill. I mean, there's a lot of good, you know, if it wasn't for her, Hastinapura's lineage, the photo lineage wouldn't have survived, right? And we wouldn't have had the Marvel at the War. We wouldn't have had Krishna's Gita. So I think she deserves a bit more credit than she's been given over time. But I think history has been very fair to her. So therefore, I thought, let me tell, I want to tell the Marvel at the War story. And this is the first book of a series, hopefully. And I thought, let's start the story. Each story should be said in a female voice because they're very much overlooked. My wife's a feminist, organises International Women's Day here with my cousin. And she said to me that if you're going to tell the story, why don't you use a female voice narrating it? Because it's been overlooked. That's a nice, fresh angle. And quite frankly, there's more female readers than there are male readers, statistically. So it's a bit more appealing. And that's the businessman in me thinking about it in that sense. So yeah, I think Ganga could have been an obvious choice. But all these things that I've just said about Satyavati gave me these reasons that maybe she needs a bit of a voice here. So let's do it. I always wonder why some of these characters aren't given that much importance. And then, but that just gives us the opportunity to sort of create their stories. And coming to, you know, stepping into her shoes and stepping into a female character's shoes. As a male author, how challenging was it for you to step into her shoes? Especially, firstly, from a first person perspective. And then in this historical context, which has nothing to do with our time. So what kind of research did you do? And how did you go about it? So the first thing is, how did I step into the voice of being a woman? Well, if you ask any man that's married, I think that they'll probably be able to do it with a little bit of ease because it's a pretty dominant voice in the household. So we're used to it to start with. But secondly, you know, male or female, I just tried to, I didn't think about it like that as much initially. I just thought, what's it like to, what would it be like to put myself in that person's shoes? Now, this is my first book and it's the first time I've been an author. Prior to this, and even now going forward, I'm a businessman as well. I've been a CEO and it's my job to put myself into other people's shoes and see how they're feeling and see how they go about it and see what they would think like. So in that sense, I kind of used some natural experience and skill sets that I already have and adapted it accordingly to her shoes. But throughout learning these stories over the years, I've put myself in a lot of character's shoes. You know, I've just sat there and imagined, what would it be like if it was like this? How difficult a decision would that have been? You know, in various different things. Just learning it over time and teaching over time and debating different characters because the Mahabharata is a very grey story. Different shades of grey for every character. There's no black or white, right or wrong in absolute definitions here. There's things, you know, there's mistakes the Pandavas made later on. Yudhisthira ended up lying, being Dharmaraja's son. Everybody is a flawed character in the Mahabharata. There's no one character that is perfect, that everybody could say is perfect. So yeah, I guess, you know, just time and just putting myself in other people's position, really. And then I also, you know, would bounce stuff with my wife. I go, what would you do in this situation? I also had a second author who's female checking my work as well to make sure that the voice stayed true or do my best to make the voice stay true, shall we say. And yeah, these are the types of things I did. Research-wise, I mean, I've read various books over the years. I've watched most TV adaptations there are out there. I've visited many of the spots. I was in Gurukshetra two years ago, Hastinapur 10 years ago. Dwarka, you know, I go to fairly frequently with Bapu in Gujarat. I mean, to be honest with you, it's the most obvious answer for me, actually. Following Murali Bapu's Kathas, he doesn't just talk about Ram, he talks about Krishna in the Mahabharata. And when he orates it, it's like he brings it to life. It's like he puts me in that room or in that field, and I feel as though that I'm there. I can taste the dust from the horses riding off sort of thing. I'm observing the different weapons and different skill sets. And that for me has been more captivating and more of a learning experience for me than anything else possible, really. I like that also you had sort of like you mentioned another person looking at it to check that. I feel like that editorial intervention is... Yeah, I'm a first time author. I'm just trying this out. You know, I've got various businesses. I'll be completely transparent. I'm not doing this for the money. I'm doing this for purpose more so. And getting this story out there, that's more, that's just quite digestible. A few people that have read it so far have said that it's been a nice, a not too heavy a read sort of thing, considering it can be quite a heavy story, is what I've been told. And that's really what I was trying to achieve. I wanted to make it digestible without oversimplifying it as well. I think you did achieve that because it's very easy to read and it's a lot of fun also. And what you said about moral ambiguities, I wanted to talk about that because you see these characters here, you have Satyavati who has a out-of-wedlock liaison with a sage whose then child is Vyasa, who goes on to write the Mahabharata. You have Ganga who's drowning her own children. And then on the other hand, also there are characters of extreme virtue, upstanding behaviour, like Devrath, who kind of then also acts out of character. So our myths are like this, you know, they're not one-dimensional. So according to you, what makes our Indian mythology different from the mythology of other cultures? Wow, okay. There's a lot of great characters. I can't claim to be an expert on mythology of other cultures to start with, but I know a few bits here or there. So I'll give it a go. I think our culture is very similar to Egyptian culture with their demigods, their Zeus stories. I think that in other cultures, some of these gods are seen a little bit more human or violent, shall we say, less compassionate is what I would say. There's quite a few characters. Norse mythology, again, it's very much suited to their environments. It's very sea-orientated, shall we say. Our one, there's great characters left, right, and centre. Indra is not, you know, he's not an ideal, virtuous god. He's got a lot of flaws as well. A lot of these gods do. Even Narada, he cursed Vishnu in anger. I mean, some people will question Shiv, that is he, how good a god is he? Has he chopped his own son's head off? Or even if he didn't know he was a son, he's still a child, you know? So, and replaced it with an elephant's head. So, I think that our story has got so many layers. If you look at the Vishnu Puran, and Ram and Vishnu being the seventh and eighth incarnations of Vishnu, they're the stories we focus on in modern day language today, but there's six incarnations before that. You know, it's ancient. You know, so I think that the depth and the time that Indian mythology has is pretty much unparalleled, but there's, you know, there's two big civilisations out there that have got mythology equally. There's also many lost civilisations over centuries and millennia that have had mythology that we've lost. Aborigine, Native American, you know, there's stuff that's there, but it's just not as held on to, can we say. It's really hard to compare, but essentially all of these mythology, you know, compared to traditional religions, points up to beings in the stars, that were gods that came and gave us stuff, that created us and gave us certain knowledge. And modern day religions, maybe those, you know, it doesn't go down that path, should we say. So one of the most interesting relationships and characters I found in the book is that of Devrath, who becomes Usbhishma. And the story is that basically he is very steadfast in his vow. He takes a vow of being celibate because Satyavati's father refused to let Satyavati marry his father, Shantanu, because he said that he doesn't want the crown prince Devrath to become heir. He wants Satyavati's bloodline and his bloodline to become the heirs of Hastinapur. So then for his own father's happiness, he sacrifices his ambition. He sacrifices kind of himself in a way so that his father can get married and enjoy and have that happiness that he missed out on with his first wife. So I really, really love that story and I love that character. So tell me a little bit about Bhishma and why even in the book, we see that, you know, he's taken this oath, but because Hastinapur needs an heir so badly, even Satyavati's father in the end starts telling him, hey, you know, go back on this oath. It's okay, you become the heir. You sort of, you know, propagate this line. And he says, no, I took this oath and I'm steadfast in this oath. So tell me a little bit about him and why does he not go back on his oath? Okay, so Bhishma, you know, from my learnings was a man of idealism as much as possible. There's question marks on a couple of incidents in his life, you know, that we can question. But, you know, for the majority and consistency of his life, he was a Kshatriya, he was a warrior. And we're talking about a different aeon, a different time, a different age. If Bhishma's story happens today in a royal family, it would be expected that Bhishma should become the king based on the royal line being no more. Yet he made a vow and his vow is more important than his life. And once he's made it, it's unbreakable. Now, should he have become king? In my opinion, he probably should have because a king should be doing what's best for the people. And that's what Bhishma taught and lived by. Yet he didn't put the people first. He actually put his vow which outweighed all the people. Is that right? Is that wrong? This is why everyone's a great character. But Bhishma had the best intentions and he lived by his ideals and his virtues. And he's a fascinating, fascinating character. Selfless, it doesn't scratch the surface. If I hadn't written about Satyavati and gone down the route of writing it from a female's voice, this story is essentially Bhishma's chapter of the Mahabharata. He's very, very involved in what's happening throughout everything over here. He's a main character and could very easily have been a lead in this story. I mean, knowledge-wise, he's trained by the gods. His mother's, River Ganga, who represents purity. She's the purest thing on Mother Earth. Taught by the sages, the best sages, especially out of the Saptarishis as well. He was taught by many of them the art of politics, the art of warfare. He learned that from Bhoshanam, you know, the immortal. There's no warrior, there's no one as learned, as fair, as just. I mean, in his very early days, he knew how to be a just ruler. He was loved by the people. You know, he kind of wrote the playbook for what an ideal ruler needs to be, should be. And he's the ruler that we never had, which is what's tragic. And should he have become king later on? Yes, he should have probably. But this is what defined Bishma being Bishma. This is why we talk about him this many thousands of years later. Because I think he was, if I'm not mistaken, he was told that no one's done an oath like he's ever done. And no one after that will ever do it either, right? So he's a unique individual in human history. He's somebody I very much admire. And in my later books, when, you know, with his interactions with other characters, we'll see even more depths of him as well. But, you know, in this period of his life, he was very much his stepmother's ally. He was very much a ruling partner for the kingdom. You know, there's been some sources that questioned if they had more than just that type of relationship. And I think absolutely not. It was a mother-son relationship. It was a relationship based on ruling. I mean, if Bishma wouldn't become king, there's no way that that sort of, you know, a different type of relationship would happen here. So I very much dismissed that idea and kept it to what I really thought it is. And that is a relationship for looking after the kingdom after Satyavati's two young children pass, waiting for the next generation to blossom, essentially. I really liked also, you know, because Shantanu, when Satyavati had two kids, Shantanu always felt guilty. So he never gave his kids much attention because, you know, he felt guilty that his first son Bheeshma could not become heir and the sacrifice that Bheeshma had made for him. So you see Bheeshma taking on that role, you know, playing with the children and I found that very, very enduring. And I agree, I really love this character. I don't know why, but this character really sort of stuck with me. And one of the most fascinating moments for me was when he acted out of character. When he actually was waging a war on this king who had snubbed him and then he kind of like abducted his three daughters. And even you see Satyavati's confusion, you know, she mentions it. She said, this is so out of character for him. He's usually so calm and everything. And now, okay, I'm seeing that he is his mother's son, Ganga's son, because he is after all a demigod. So can you tell me a little bit more about that incident and why did he act out of character? Yeah, it is out of character for him. But I think every human being wears different hats and what version of themselves they present at the moment in time based on what's happening in front of them. When I go and see my son, I've got my father hats on. When I go and see my wife, I've got my husband hats on. When I go and see my parents, I've got my son hats on. I'm still the same person, but there's different iterations of me that I'm presenting to each one of them. And it's a unique relationship I have with each one of them as well. In this situation, Bhishma went from, you know, this is a time where Bhishma's youngest brother, Vichitravirya, is quite young. Bhishma has been an older brother to him, but has had more of a paternal role in his life as well and is trying to get him married. Now, Hastinapur has been snubbed here. So it was a political message that was being sent to Hastinapur. And Bhishma, for the last 25, 30-odd years, has been protecting Hastinapur's borders and political alliances as well. We're in a different time here compared to today. So what's reasonable today and what's reasonable then does differ in terms of what's acceptable at times. So he then took that as a threat to Hastinapur's status. Somebody's, a different kingdom, was trying to lower their status. And he had to maintain that elevation one and show everybody that, listen, Hastinapur is a major kingdom. We're a major player. Yes, we've been a bit quiet. Yes, there's not been an active ruler there for a little while. But that was a tough job he had, you know, not being the king yet ruling and waiting for his younger brother, who was a child at the time, to mature them to be king. And we don't even know how good or bad that king could potentially be. So I think that's one. I think the reason was political. I think when he took the princesses, it was a statement that, listen, because he didn't advise us, we're now going there. Was that the right thing to do? I mean, no. No woman should be abducted or forced to marry against her will at any point in time of history, past, present or future. I don't know. I mean, there's, you know, there's a few stories of certain abductions that happened in this time period, so compared to today, maybe. So it's hard to judge that, not, you know, me being from over here. But he did do it. And that's how the story of Amba comes out as Ambalika and the third sister become Bandra and Dhritarashtra's mothers. So they're very much entrenched in this story. And, you know, the other two princesses went with the flow a little bit. But yeah, you know, that definitely blemished Hishma's character. And ultimately, in time later on, will be his downfall. You know, it does come back to get him. So he doesn't get away with it. But, you know, he's definitely a fantastic character. And I just wanted to point out that, I mean, one of the things that I, one of the first things I learned with the Mahabharata in total was B. R. Chopra's 1988 version of it that came on in India and the UK. And Mukesh Khanna, who played Hishma Pitamah, brought this character to life. And, you know, really gave me a good understanding of who and what he was in all his strengths and flaws as well. And made him, you know, he had the law of attraction. People were drawn to him. He was a magnet in the room type thing. And I felt that way on screen whenever I saw Mukesh Khanna play this character. Yeah, coming to, you know, the differences in our context and the context in which you're writing in. Your book is a mythological epic, obviously written for modern day readers. So how do you see Satyavati's story being relevant in today's world, resonating with women, especially in leadership roles? So I think Satyavati, we said earlier on that she was literally a fish out of water. She was a boat lady, a lower caste, a lower status in society. She was a modern day Uber driver, shall we say, okay? Now she's a queen. That's a huge jump. And you got to adapt as you go. I think women today, I mean, it's becoming less common these days, but in the traditional sense, when women get married, they move into a new household. Like, so they're not just marrying somebody. They can be marrying their family or most sort of thing and going to a brand new household where there's a whole set of routines. Now they've got to change, learn, and adapt. Satyavati went into a palace, right? So she had to change, learn, and adapt pretty quickly. She was probably not very liked because Ganga was the previous queen and that's a pretty big shoes to fill for a second queen to come in. I think the fact that Devavati was no longer the crown prince because of her, the people would have automatically not liked her because they were pretty excited about Devavati, Bhishma becoming their next king. So now the certainty of the kingdom of Hastinapur is now uncertain and it will be uncertain not just for a couple of years, but maybe a couple of decades. So she couldn't have been very popular initially and then as she becomes the queen mother or the queen to the princes that were going to be next in line and she had to rule with Bhishma, I think she slowly started to earn the respect of her kingdom and her ministers and they saw that she was actually, in my opinion, had the kingdom's best interests at heart. So she had to go in not just from understanding a new culture of society, but she had to go and lead it. So I think a lot of women have that transition in family life, but leaders in business, my wife can definitely answer that question better being an entrepreneur and business lady herself, but I think that what my wife would say there is that it's harder for a woman. It's a man's world. If you look at how many female CEOs there are in top 500 companies, it's a very small percentage. It's not even close to 50-50, anywhere near that. I think it's something like 3% or 4% are women, right? So it's a man's world and it still is. Should it be? No. Do women do a good job in leading? Yes. I think Satyavati did a very good job considering her circumstances. They were very, very difficult. So coming to the publishing process, Satyavati is published by JECO. So could you tell me a little bit about how that collaboration happened and your publishing journey? So I'm a first time author, never done this. It's an idea I had during COVID. The reason I wanted to do these books is I wanted to take these stories to the Western world. I really enjoyed watching Game of Thrones and saw the similarities between that and the Mahabharata. And I thought, imagine you had the Mahabharata story like Game of Thrones production or a Lord of the Rings production. How much would a Western audience that don't know the story, how much would they enjoy this story? And I think they'd enjoy it quite a lot based on what's been popular around. So I said, why isn't anyone doing this? And I just thought, it's COVID. What's my purpose in life? I've got a number of businesses and I'm going to continue having a number of businesses which do very well. My father's an entrepreneur. I've taken those footsteps. I've been doing things in entrepreneurship, but my spiritual father is Murari Bapu. What have I done to honour his life? Okay. I've taught a few of my cousins the stories. I've studied it for a long time, but I've not done anything to honour that. So I thought to myself, let me take a leaf out of Robert Hiyosaki's book. Let me do something to honour my spiritual father. And let me take the stories, the khatas that he uses and see if I can put them onto the screen. I wrote screenplays and I took it around to the various studios. He told me that you're an unknown. You're not in our industry. It's very hard to get into the industry. You don't even have a book. You've got no track record. Get out of here. And they had a point. I've got no track record. If I was them, I wouldn't have taken me in. Again, I put myself in other people's shoes as often as I can. So I said, okay, well, if I write a book and it does really well, then I'll be looked at a bit more again. So I wrote the book, which I had mainly already derived from the screenplay already and went to a bunch of agents. I was literally sending cold call emails out to publishers, agents. And I was living in the UK. I was living in India. Nobody really gave me any time of day, actually. Nobody really looked twice. And I just thought, well, okay, at least I've written it down. I followed my heart. I followed my soul. And it's been fun. And I've knocked on every door and I can say that I've tried. And then I spoke to a very good family friend of mine DJ Sugetu. Sugetu's father and my father, God rest his soul, were very, very good friends, the best of friends. So I've grown up with Sugetu for many years. And his wife, Priya, is Priya's family, owned Jayco. And we've never had business conversations about book publishing. I'm from a different world of entrepreneurship. But Sugetu just mentioned that, well, Priya owns Jayco. They're a pretty big deal. Why don't you send them your stuff? So I said, okay. So I said, I'm not thinking anything much from it. And then Akash, who's the CEO, said, okay, why don't you meet one of my people? And I just thought he was being nice because I'm a family friend. And I met a lady called Feji. And Feji's like, we really want to run with this. So I went and met them in their offices just less than two years ago, actually. And she said, yeah, we really want to run with this. And let's do it. So I said, okay. And it's been a journey of growth and learning as I'm going. I'm learning. This is the second or third podcast I'm doing right now. I'm really learning everything as I'm going right now. So it's been a lot of fun. But that's been my journey so far and the reasonings behind of why I wanted to do this. That's really cool. And I think even I'm going to re-bridge that word because I'm also an entrepreneur. So it might help me. Okay. I was also very interested in Ganga's character because you see her in the beginning of the book. She's the one who was Shantanu's first wife. And we see sort of, you know, she's drowning her children, basically. And she tells Shantanu, don't ever question me. I'll only marry you if you don't question me. And he's able to not do that. But then it just gets too much for him. So tell me a little bit more about this Ganga character and, you know, why is she doing what she's doing? So the character of Ganga, she's the daughter of Brahma. Okay. And earlier than the Mahabharata, in earlier times of Bhagirath, who was an ancestor of Rambhagwan, Bhagirath poured down the river Ganga to purify the earth. And one strong theory is that's the same incident as Noah's Ark in the Bible. The earth got flooded. And she came down with such force and such might that the earth got flooded from the heavens. So Bhagirath prayed to Shiv, and Shiv basically used his hair and used that as somewhat of a filter or a dam. So it came out with a lot less force. So she goes through Shiv to get to earth. It's holy water coming from the heavens. And she personifies that. She represents absolute purity. It's said that if you drink the water from the Ganges, it could basically eliminate every sin one has done in a lifetime. You get a clean slate. It's that pure. So that's what she's known as. Now, in this story, she's introduced drowning her babies. It's very different to what people have grown up thinking of what she is. Now, there's a really good reason in that. And just before I answer why that happened, I actually purposely didn't talk too much about the Ganga character in this book. I want to leave her a bit more of a mystery for book two. And you can see Bhishma's relationship with her in book two a little bit more. But I wanted the readers to want more of her. So I'm glad you've asked about her because I think that's done the job done a little bit. But why she did that? There was a number of Vasus who were cursed to have lives of unimaginable pain on earth. And they went to the River Ganga. They go, please help us. We've been cursed. We're not, you know, our souls are beyond having to go down to earth again. It's a demotion. It'll be painful. And we're due to endure a lot of heavy loss and pain. What can you do to help us, please? So she said, well, you're cursed to be born. I can't stop that. And you're cursed to have pain. I can't stop that either. But I can make your life as short as possible so that your pain is minimalized. So essentially, she was ending their suffering and helping them be free from a curse from a previous life. She'd done a soul contract with them to give birth to them and to end things as quickly as possible. Now, on a human level, that's pretty difficult to digest. But she's not a human. She's a goddess. So she's made a soul contract with seven souls that are going to be tormented later on to help them out. And one of them wasn't able to be drowned. That ends up becoming Devad. And Devad's life is a pretty painful one, as you'll see in later books. I mean, there's a lot of information on what happens after my book out there that people can go and check anyway. You'll see he has a very painful life. And his end is very painful. It's actually unimaginably painful. So she couldn't quite save him. But she does support him throughout his life as a guide, as a mother, as somebody that advises him. And she's a phenomenal character, full of wisdom. Incredibly beautiful. That's, yeah, very powerful. Very steadfast in her ways. Very determined. And you can see where Bhishma gets that from. What's your next book going to be about? You already hinted at it a little bit with what exactly is, who's the main character in the next book? Who would you like it to be? I don't know. Maybe, is it Ganga? I can guess. Or is it Bhishma? I mean, it'd be nice to continue the trend of doing it from a lesser character who's female to give them a bit more of a voice. So I'm toying with the idea. I mean, Durabhi is a bit later on. I'm looking at doing four to five books here to tell the story up to the end. And for the next stage of the story, I'm toying with the idea of Gandhari, Duryodhana's mother. I'm toying with the idea of Devaki, Krishna's mother. I haven't fully decided yet. I'm in the process, I'm in the creative works of it right now, of trying to... I figured out the beginning. I figured out the end. I'm trying to work through the middle bits now to figure out how it all weaves together a little bit. So yeah, that's where I'm at. I'm toying with two different names right now. Nothing's decided. I'd love it if my readers could give me some suggestions of what they want. I'd love to hear from them and hear their thoughts, their views, their suggestions. Any criticism as well. I mean, my work's not perfect by any means. It's the first time I'm doing this. I'm welcome to feedback. One thing I've learned about the Ramayana and Mahabharata is that because it's such an old story and it's been told in such various parts of the world, there's going to be different iterations of it. The Ramayana, if you go to South India, Sita's one of the warriors and actually fights in the war with Rama, which is not what happens in Dosidas's Ramayana or Valmiki's Ramayana. So there's many different iterations from different parts of the world. There's not really one truth. I've just done the best to capture what my interpretation of that truth is. I always love books on mythology, so I'm looking forward to it. So now we have our last section of the interview, which is a rapid fire round where I'm going to ask you questions and you have to answer in only one word or one sentence. Okay, so your favourite character in Indian mythology? A writing ritual you swear by? Pray first. Are you an early morning writer or late night writer? Late night. A book that you think everyone should read? Everyone should read. Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence Others. What was the most challenging scene for you to write? The most challenging scene for me to write, I think was probably when Devrat makes the oath. It's an otherworldly event that's happening. You know, I really do picture and imagine thunder and lightning, the skies opening up, the gods looking down at what's happening at this moment in human history without trying to over-dramatising it like a TV soap would be, but trying to give it that realism, just the magic in the air, you know, the echoes of his words. I think, how can you do that justice with a pen and paper, with letters? It's pretty hard to begin to put that into writing because I think writing just, it's so two-dimensional, but it can give a fourth-dimensional imagination. So to do that right was pretty daunting, I think. I still don't know if I've done it right, you know, if I'm honest. So you can let me know what you think of that part of the book if you want. I think I really liked the way the book was written because as you said, it's not very heavy. It was a very easy read, I think, which I really enjoyed. And it had a lot of information and was also very immersive. And I did, you know, actually, the way that I had come across this character was in just a very short myth that ended with Devdutt taking the vow, taking the oath. So I never knew about what happens to Satyavati next. So that part was very interesting to me. But thank you so much for such an interesting conversation. I feel everyone listening will definitely look at this character Satyavati a little differently now, not as a side character, but as a force who shaped the identity of the Kuru dynasty. And I have a question for our listeners, which mythological character do you think deserves their own novel? There's a lot of retellings happening right now. I think people, readers are more interested in myths than ever. I know I pick up a lot of it. So let us know. And while you think about that, do hit follow on Spotify and Apple Podcasts so you never miss an episode. Thank you.