From Devotion to Dissent: Sabari Reimagined

A Storizen Exclusive Feature

- By Pria Raiyani and Swapna Peri

Myth retellings often carry within them a double gaze—toward the past that shaped them, and the present that reimagines them. On the Banks of the Pampa, the concluding volume in Volga’s feminist trilogy, offers such a gaze through the story of Sabari, the forest-dweller whose fleeting presence in the Ramayana expands here into a meditation on caste, power, ecological destruction, and resistance. In this conversation, the author and translator reflect on Sabari not just as a figure of devotion but as a voice of dissent, a custodian of the forest, and a quiet critic of conquest-driven dharma. We explore how mythology becomes a medium for environmental consciousness, how spiritual life intersects with political resistance, and how the challenges of translation can carry forward both the rootedness and the fire of Volga’s original Telugu prose.

Sabari's tale, as retold in thenovella, becomes a voice of dissent against systems of oppression. What inspired you to choose her brief episode from the Ramayana written by Volga to explore such potent themes of caste, power, and ecological destruction?