Radha is a fictional novel written by Krishna Dharabasi, portraying the mythical characters of Dwapara Yuga, Radha, and Krishna.
Krishna is worshipped as one of the 10 avatars of Lord Bishnu, but here in the novel, the writer has tried to portray them as humans with higher abilities.
the story starts with, manuscripts left out by Radha while she was at the end of her journey. After Krishna kills Kansha he doesn't return back to bajra. Due to her own ego, Radha herself couldn't visit Krishna in Mathura. Krishna had a handful of jobs as a king. Sushila, one of the closest friends of Radha and Krishna loses her life while fighting for Krishna.
Krishna killed Narkasura, who had 16,100 wives in his prison. Soon after emancipating them, he marries all of them at once. By then he already had married, Rukmini and 7 other wives. so altogether he had 16,108 wives. A man cannot please so many wives, even staying one night with one wife would cause her to wait for 44 years for the next visit, horrible isn't.
आफुले आफुलाई म को थिए होला भन्ने प्रश्न गर्न नपाउदै मर्दो रहेछ मान्छे
As a child when Krishna called all his friends who were girls in the Bhandir forest, he tells Radha that, we should rise from physical and material love to the form of spiritual love. So the question is if he wasn't interested in having sex why did he marry so many women? He explains to Radha that he found different features of her in different wives.
I found the book awfully long, though the plot and some of the stories are way awesome. Dharabasi mostly tries to impart women empowerment in his novels. As for examples are, Jhola and Tundal.
Radha doesn't like the idea of Krishna marrying so many women and Pandava sharing single Draupadi. Karmanasha ( daughter of Yasoda and Nanda ray who was exchanged with Krishna ) remorses her marriage with rishi Durbasa. All the women in the novel are unhappy and they argue that they should have the freedom of choosing their groom.
Out of all the miseries, Radha sets her journey to leave behind all the worldly pleasures and find the meaning of life, she leaves her old sick mother
Kalawati. Actually kalawati herself lets her go. She finds out that the women were treated as lower humans and weren't allowed to make decisions.
Meanwhile, Krishna had built Dwarika, a great city where for Radha he built a huge palace called a Radha Bhawan.
Throughout the novel, there are no traces of godly powers. And Radha is against worshipping idols.
The story ends with the war of Kurukshetra and the narrator actually turns out to be
Aswatthama.
The novel contradicts with actual myth Mahabharata. Readers will for sure take a moment and question themselves if we were told the truth.
Dharawasi argues that the stories we have been told are just biased, one side of stories, not the whole story indeed.
Radha, in her journey, visits Muktinath, and Biratnagar and that's when she wrote the manuscripts.
Id rate this novel
7/10. I know it deserves more but few things are repetitive and I am a huge fan of minimalism.