Author Gourav Mohanty is here today not only to tell you about his newest novel, but also to let you in on some of India’s most interesting mythology. Take a look at the Big Idea for Dance of Shadows, and see what these forgotten legends are all about.
GOURAV MOHANTY:
When I glance at the Big Idea board for Dance of Shadows, it resembles a Pinterest collage gone rogue, a chaotic smorgasbord, an alloy of ambitious ‘What Ifs’ plucked straight from my daydreams to paste on hardbacks. All it took was stepping back and squinting at it just enough to blur the details to let the theme, the Big Idea, climb to the surface.
Outcaste women from Indian history: Cerebral, bewitching and heartless women from India’s historical records whose names we once shouted but now only whisper. I reckon that was the big idea – to mainstream the marginalized. So without further ado, let me introduce you to them.
The first unsettling ladies you might run into in Dance of Shadows could be the tantric witches who were feared and worshipped as Yoginis in India. Witches around the world, with the notable exception of Scarlet Witch in the Avengers, are often shown in the template of vegan plant-loving peace-lusting hippies.
The Yoginis cut a rather different dash. These ancient Indian witches performed rituals which would make George R.R. Martin blush. They consorted on corpses, decapitated unsuspecting fauna for their sacrifices and ingested human fluids in skull-decked ceremonies to awaken their powers. Powers that were rumoured to include shapeshifting and astral travel. But if Steve Harvey were to ask of Indian rituals on an episode of Family Feud, the West would only guess at the sanitized pursuits of cosmic consciousness using austerities and meditation.
Source: The Big Idea: Gourav Mohanty | Whatever
