Fascinating and a crisp read. I am very new to the rabbit hole of Devdutt Pattanaik and his works.

This book is a collection of short stories from Hindu mythology. It shows how fluid is gender and how it lies in a spectrum instead of being strictly defined like other myths.

I have always been fascinated by the birth of Aiyappan (Hari-hara sudhan), born between Vishnu, who temporarily turned into Mohini and Shiva. So I enjoyed all the 30 such short stories in this book. A king, becoming pregnant, and bizarrely delivering a child. A cursed person, turning male in the waxing moon period and female in the waning moon period. A bromance story.

I found the footnotes in every story fascinating and making to dig deep into every one of them. Highly recommend it. ( )

Some of the stories were good. A lot of them were very small, and there are only so many tiny stories that you can have before they start overlapping. ( )

This is a wonderful collection of stories, most of which you’ll be aware of if you have extensively read various versions of our Hindu epics. What changes is the perspective that the author offers, looking at these stories from a queer perspective - how gender and sexuality were quite fluid in ancient times and it’s only through the passage of time and influence of other cultures that has made our culture now more rigid and intolerant of anyone who don’t confirm to the gender and sexual binaries.

This book definitely made me wonder how easy it has always been for me to accept the queer undertones of these stories without ever acknowledging it and just attributing it to the actions of gods. Wish life were that simple and there was widespread acceptance of everyone irrespective of their identity in our world.

Definitely give this book a try because it offers a very different approach to interpreting our traditional stories and might just open your eyes a little more.
And I leave you with this last one from the book —

“Krishna shows his cosmic form to Arjuna and says, ‘I am all there is, was and will be.’ In Hinduism, the world is not distinct from God. The world is God. God contains everything. The queer is not excluded.” ( )

Whenever mythology is mentioned the first and foremost thing we do is 'imagine'-- making castle on the clouds, gods having magical power coming out of their hands 😂😂 and lots more, which has somewhere of the other infested the mindset of our generation wildly. But, is that it?? Well... No. It is more than an illusion, it is a #philosophy, it is a study. It endorses all of us towards a tradition that is framed for the betterment of the society. Now the question here comes regarding how much we are into it. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
@devduttmyth 'Shikhandi- And the other tales they don't tell you' represents the norms of ancient society that celebrates the beauty of relationship among genders--- gays, lesbians, transgenders, and their space in the society which was far better and genuine than today. Here, the author picks beautiful stories from ancient text with the reason behind their purpose of writing in the end of the chapters accompanied with author's perspective.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Language is extremely simple and comprehensive. Some topics that throw strong revelation are the chapters regarding #transgenders (Shikhandini), same-sex relation (Hari-Hara) and birth of Bhagirathi from two females. Thanks to @devduttmyth for upcoming with such genuine yet unknown #topics to the audience like us. Overall, a small book with strong and bold narratives which will make you thing twice before considering it to be nonsensical and a good dose for those bigoted beings who find such topics explicit. My rate 4.5/5. Simply an eye-opener. Bold-minded friends this is a damn good book for you.. ( )