On the Banks of the Pampa : A Novel

Sabari''s encounter with Rama is an important episode in the Ramayana. But who was Sabari a forest-dweller who became Rama''s ardent devotee? On the Banks of the Pampa a novel by the award-winning writer Volga tells the story of Sabari a child of aranyavasis once enslaved by a colonizing state; of her escape from captivity and reunion with her guru Matanga Muni; of the journey of her spiritual awakening and birth into a voice of dissent for the oppressed. Hers is a narrative entwined with the forest along the Pampa river-one she comes to dwell in where the human and non-human worlds exist in harmony. Poignant and piercing this final book in Volga''s trilogy of feminist retellings of the epics challenges conventional notions of dharma and rejects the human-centric view that justifies conquest and the exploitation of nature. Powerfully translated into English by Purnima Tammireddy this is a story of resistance-a story for the times we live in drawn from the classic tale we know so well.