Female chauvinism?
Well well, wasn't I eager to get my hands on this book once I heard what it was about? When I first heard the tittle, I really didn't think that this was the theme that the book dealt with. What does "The Missing Queen" imply? That it is the story of a queen, who goes missing & the heroics involved in restoring her to her rightful glory? Yeah, I thought on the same lines myself. But boy, was I proved wrong!!
This is one of those books that takes feminism to new heights. Take a classic story that we have all grown up listening to & give it a makeover. Add a little glitz & glam, push a few things around, rearrange the little details. But why not tell it from a point of view we haven't taken before? That is exactly the tone which this book takes.
The missing queen retells the Ramayana to us, only, from the point of view of a journalist(female, mind you). In the meantime she is pushed around & bullied by the men in the book. Set in modern times, where Kaikeyi is a smoking, chiffon saree clad woman, who banished herself away owing to her husband's death, the author has done a good job of adapting everything to our times. This makes connecting to the characters a tad easier than otherwise. The book follows the journalist through her journey to find Sita. When everywhere around her there is peace about how everything goes back to normal because Rama is the ruler again, the one burning question for her is, Where is the queen?
The book takes you to Lanka, in the meantime telling stories about the characters you meet on the way, carefully woven such that just enough detail is given to each character, the style & the language is simple. Maybe it is a bit too biased, but I guess the feminists would devour this book. All in all, a good read, especially since it deals with an epic, only set in modern times. Pick up a copy, afterall, you need a change once in a while.