There is much to learn about how some locales come to be deemed as more cosmopolitan than others. Mumbai is hailed as a cosmopolitan city and even a model for India. With an increasing sense of disappointment about the decline of cosmopolitanism in such metropolitan cities, there is a need to look at what other locales can offer as alternative models of cosmopolitanism. This article addresses Kochi as a locale that is nuanced with precolonial practices of cosmopolitanism. This move towards provincialising cosmopolitanism – in the sense of moving away from metropolitan locales to highlight deeper, more historical and local ways of being cosmopolitan – is informed by the growing emphasis on the need to explore subaltern or vernacular cosmopolitanism.
Exercises in feminist theology outside Western contexts and outside of discourses of theorisation can prove to be enriching to address the disconnection between secular and religious feminisms. One way to address this disconnection is to locate the intersection between secular and religious feminisms in the space of fiction. While mytho-fiction about the Hindu epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, has been around for quite some time and has been extensively analysed for its critique of religion and diversity of representation of heroines, the feminist hermeneutic of reconstruction is only now witnessing a resurgence in Buddhism. This article focuses on Buddhist Studies scholar Vanessa R Sasson’s debut novel Yasodhara and the Buddha for its blending of feminist consciousness with the Buddhist ethos of love. It is hoped that this exercise will be found meaningful in understanding women’s experiences of and attitudes towards religion.
Review of: DigiNaka: Subaltern Politics and Digital Media in Post-Capitalist India, Anjali Monteiro, K. P. Jayasankar and Amit S. Rai (Eds) (2020)
Hyderabad: Orient Black Swan, 276 pp.,
ISBN 978-9-35287-906-9, p/bk, ₹695
Review of: Bombay Cinema’s Islamicate Histories, Ira Bhaskar and Richard Allen (Eds) (2022)
Hyderabad: Orient BlackSwan, 424 pp.,
ISBN 978-9-35442-257-7, p/bk, ₹2295
Feminist re-visioning has led to heterogenous retellings of mythological heroines in fiction. Sita and Draupadi, two of the well-known Indian mythological characters, have been explored in various capacities in mythological fiction. Yashodhara, Buddha’s wife, is a recent addition to this re-visioning project. This article seeks to engage with three retellings of Yashodhara’s story—each of which is radically different from the others. The result is the rise of hagiographical fiction around the character—responsive to the Buddhist ethos of love and spirituality. This article argues that the most intriguing representations of Yashodhara found in this fiction are rooted in the nonoppositional agency given to her character.
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