‘Intemperance’ by Sonora Jha: 55-year-old woman’s ‘swayamvar’ story is charming and wise

According to the Mahabharata, King Drupada of Panchal, in his search for a suitable husband for his daughter Draupadi, organised a swayamvar for her: a tournament that required aspiring suitors to perform feats of valour and skill. The man who eventually won – Arjun, the most accomplished archer of all – became Draupadi’s husband (though there’s more to the story).

The Hindu epics are full of stories of swayamvars. Some (including another famous swayamvar, that of Sita in the Ramayana) require the men to show their prowess as warriors; others (like Damayanti, in the Mahabharata) are allowed the freedom of the true meaning of swayamvar: “self-choice”s. The Mahabharata, in fact, has several instances of swayamvars, both feat-driven and not. There is the swayamvar of the three princesses of Kashi, Amba, Ambika and Ambalika; and there’s Kunti, who chose King Pandu – but who had already, before her marriage to Pandu, given birth to a son named Karna.

The third marriage

The protagonist-narrator of the US-based writer of Indian origin Sonora Jha’s Intemperance is never named. But she has a son, from a former marriage, named Karan. And now this woman, a 55-year-old professor of sociology but currently on a sabbatical, twice-divorced, partly disabled because of childhood polio and adulthood accident –...

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