Some books make you look at a familiar story differently. Bhima’s Wife by Kavita Kane is one of them. We know Bhima, we know the Pandavas, and we know the broad contours of the Mahabharata. But Hidimbi is usually little more than a name in the larger epic. Kane takes that brief reference and builds an entire emotional world around it.
I took a little time to settle into the book. The opening felt slow to me, and I wondered whether the story would hold my attention. By the middle, however, I was completely drawn in. What began as a fictional exploration of a relatively obscure character became a surprisingly moving journey through love, loneliness, motherhood, leadership and loss.
The most interesting aspect of the book is the freedom Kane takes with the epic. She does not try to merely retell the Mahabharata. She imagines the life that could have existed in the spaces the original narrative leaves unexplored. Hidimbi is no longer simply the rakshasi who encounters Bhima. She becomes a woman with her own choices, ambitions, fears, relationships and responsibilities.
And this is where the book works particularly well for me. The label of rakshasi gradually loses its importance. Kane creates a world in which the distinction between humans and rakshasas is far less rigid than we might assume. Neither side is entirely virtuous or entirely cruel. What matters increasingly is not birth or lineage, but the individual’s character.
Hidimbi’s relationship with Bhima forms the story’s emotional core. Her love is intense and wholehearted. Yet Bhima has a larger destiny to pursue, and she is ultimately left to make a life beyond him. There is considerable pain in that imbalance, but Hidimbi is never reduced to a rejected lover. She finds purpose in her people, her leadership and, most importantly, in raising Ghatotkacha.
Her journey as a mother is particularly affecting. We see her prepare her son for the world, nurture his strength and yet carry the fears that only a mother can understand. His eventual journey towards the Kurukshetra war gives that relationship an added poignancy. Ghatotkacha matters here not simply as a character from the epic, but as the son through whom we understand another side of Hidimbi.
I also enjoyed the quieter moments, particularly the encounters between women who occupy very different positions in the epic. They remind us that beneath the grand narrative of kingdoms, wars and destiny were people negotiating love, loyalty, duty and hurt.
Kane writes in an easy, accessible style, but considerable emotional intensity lies beneath it. Her greatest achievement is perhaps making Hidimbi feel alive rather than legendary.
By the end, I had moved well beyond my initial hesitation. I came away feeling that I had encountered a woman who had lived a complete life while history chose to look elsewhere.
That, for me, is the real success of Bhima’s Wife. It does not change the Mahabharata; it makes us pause and look at one of its forgotten corners. And it has certainly made me want to pick up another book by Kavita Kane.
I like such series where the whole epic or part of it is taken and recreated and re-narrated from a single characters POV> I have earlier read and enjoyed the series of books by Narendra Kohli , I read long time back the book URMILA- Lakshman’s wife. And Kavita Kane herself has taken her point of view in the book ‘SITA’s SISTER’. Also, you can read my review of Kavita Kane’s book KARNA’s Wife –I loved that book.
BHIMA’s WIFE by Kavita Kane, published by Penguin. INR 399. Page 338.
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