Since Vaani is a work made of short but interconnected letters, I’m writing a meta for the entire work.
Ankur di’s headcanons about the Kalakeya cultures was the post that inspired this work. It is also observed in real life that materially ‘richer’ cultures, especially those with a history of imperialism, tend to assume that their culture alone is ‘human’ culture, and the rest of the world is barbaric. The entire portrayal of the Kalakeyas in the movie seems extremely riven with tropes to me, the way white Western movies (this is a generalization, not meant to offend anyone) portray tribal people. (Which is why my headcanons of the Kalakeyas are based on rainforest Mesoamerican tribes, the same tribes Western conquerors derided as “uncivilized”, but actually had very advanced civilizations like I imagine the Kalakeyas would.)
Actually, there’s a word that inspired this work: “Cultural appropriation”. As far as Mahishmati is concerned, I got the impression that they believe that the Sun rises and sets on them alone, that the other inhabitants of Jambudwipa (ancient India, because there is a Kingdom named Mahishmati mentioned in the Mahabharata, so I like to believe that this Mahishmati is the same) just follow them. I wanted to present Mahishmati from the eyes of people belonging to other cultures, and that was the brainchild behind Vaani.
The Kalakeyas are depicted as almost sub-human in the movie, which is why all the chapter titles in Vaani are related to the words “humanity” or “identity”, because the writers of the letters are asserting in some way that they are human, too.
Let’s come to the letters themselves.
The first letter is written following the thought- What if a Kalakeya man had disguised himself and gone into Mahishmati, like Baahu had into Kuntala? What would he have thought? Would the Kalakeyas actually be friendly with other cultures? If so, how would they write to each other? I also wanted, for some reason, to write a letter that depicts the relief of homecoming, and hence, that particular letter was written so.
The Malwas are given just a perfunctory mention in the Coronation Ceremony of Bhalla, and there is this impression that the Malwas are under Mahishmati’s rule (I can’t exactly remember if it is canon or fanon I got that particular impression from, but oh, well.) and I can’t imagine that the people of Malwa themselves particularly like Mahishmati’s rule.
As for the third letter (the last as of now), since I headcanon that the Kalakeyas have a very open, almost democratic culture, the only way I could reconcile that with the animalistic chief they had in the movies was by a gory coup. And because I wanted at least a smidgeon of hope for them (and to introduce Udayagiri), I depicted our young letter-writer as the focal point of people who left their homeland because of the hostilities and are trying to go back to the world they knew.
I really had a lot of fun writing about the imaginary cultures of the Kalakeyas, the Malwas and the Udayagiris. These cultures are heavily inspired by real cultures; the Kalakeyas by the Mayas, the Malwas by Maldives, the Udayagiris by the Incas. I also used the cultural symbols, such as the Pink Rose (the national flower of the Maldives) as a symbol for the Malwas, the council and the ball courts of the Mayas for the Kalakeyas, and hopefully I’ll add more! Oh, and I kinda had an inside Indian mythology nod, especially for the Arjun fangirl that I am. Maya, who belongs to Malwa, mentions the Uttaraa Phalguni star as a symbol of good luck. That’s the star Arjun is named after (he’s called Phalguni/Phalguna). Yeah, I have a really huge crush on the guy…
Since both the Kalakeyas and the Udayagiris were inspired by Mesoamerican cultures, Ankur di had the idea to distantly relate both of them, and that’s what I did. Taking inspiration from ASOIAF (the breaking of the Arm of Dorne) as well as the Lemuria/Dwarka thing from mythology, I had Malwa and Kalakeya being separated because of the sea.
That’s it for this meta.
