Vinod Joshi's Sairandhari

Literature has always dealt with the present and past in its own unique way. It looks towards the pastness and often asks for its help for a present situation. Thus,  we are reminded of Eliot's historical sense i.e. pastness of the past and its present whenever a writer deals with the past. Vinod Joshi's Sairandhri is a reworking of the character from Mahabharata with a motive to give voice to this 'lost identity' as the poet himself stated in his interview with SBS Gujarati radio. Mahabharata's Draupadi is known to many, but Sairandhri still remains as a vague memory. Draupadi assumes the role of a maid (Sairandhri) for the queen Sudeshna during the Pandavas' year of disguised exile in the palace of the Matsya king, Virata. The poet states that his Sairandhri is different from Draupadi. She's someone who had to lose her identity of a queen and had to turn into a maid because of her fate. Everyday she compromises with her own identity, in order to hold on to the mask, she can't remove. The poet further states that his Sairandhri isn't the wife of Pandavas neither is she the princess born out of fire. She is the woman who loved Karna more than Arjun; and someone who, in the palace of Virat without the help of her husbands or her friend. So, she is definitely not Draupadi. In this sense, Vinod Joshi says, "મારી સૈરન્ધ્રી મહાભારતકારથી જુદી છે".