@Ramya
Ramya V
@Ramya · 1:11

AskAnAuthor | Kevin Missal decodes the art of mythological fiction as he talks about his latest book 'Durga'

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Hello and welcome to the Ask an Author series of conversations on my Swellcast where I talk to writers about writing. I'm Ramya Vivek, and today I'm speaking with TEDx speaker and bestselling author Kevin Missal. Kevin was all of 14 when he wrote his first book, and he currently is among the bestselling authors of India with several books to his credit. He's also the founder of HubHawks a creative solutions agency for brand building that offers a host of writing courses and workshops

#askanauthor #mythologicalfiction #authorinterview

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@KevinMissal
Kevin Missal
@KevinMissal · 1:20
So, yeah, taking all of that, taking all these ideas, taking the mythology, taking the taking the current scenario, current scenario between men and women, especially the religious violence towards women. I created the entire story of durga
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@Ramya
Ramya V
@Ramya · 1:06

Representation of women in mythology

Thank you so much for sharing. That's very, very interesting. What do you feel about the portrayal of women in mythology? If you were to look at Hindu mythology, for instance, the Sati Savitri stories, perhaps are the standardized molds to reinforce what the ideal woman should be like docile, self sacrificing, sort of like a vessel for the man's destiny
@Swell
Swell Team
@Swell · 0:15

Welcome to Swell!

@KevinMissal
Kevin Missal
@KevinMissal · 1:57

@Ramya

I think definitely the Sati savitri and the damsel in distress and these kind of concepts in terms of being the vessel of man's destiny and everything, they all come through volumetization, filmization. That's where the image has come out to be, because that's a response of the society to basically curb the idea entity of the woman. Right. So in terms of societally, I would say that has worked in
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@Ramya
Ramya V
@Ramya · 0:57

3. Sifting through varying versions of the same myths

So, as a writer of mythological fiction, is this something that you have found to be challenging, or do you look at it as a part of the fun, just digging through all these different versions and coming up with a story by weaving in all these tiny tidbits here and there. I would really like to know
@KevinMissal
Kevin Missal
@KevinMissal · 0:44
I don't consider it as a challenge, to be honest. I think it's really, really fun because each culture, each tradition, each city, each town, each village, they have all different variations of the same myths that we know and popularized in. So I think that's where the interesting aspect is. That how the same thing can be seen from hundred other lenses
@Ramya
Ramya V
@Ramya · 0:19

Mythological fiction & the Indian audience

I think I'll leave you with one final question, Kevin. Was it a conscious decision of yours to focus on mythological fiction, given how sensitive the Indian audience generally is when it comes to portrayal of religion and spiritual themes in works of fiction?
@KevinMissal
Kevin Missal
@KevinMissal · 1:18

@Ramya

At the end of the day, what matters is that the person who's reading the books has to kind of realize that the reason why we are doing it is because it has to just generate a certain sense of interest level. We are not trying to say that we are trying to tackle the puranas. We are not saying that we are trying to tackle the rigvedas. We're not trying to do that. Our idea is not to target or compete or challenge with them because we cannot
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@Ramya
Ramya V
@Ramya · 0:48

Durga https://amzn.eu/d/bgxvlJb

If you do have any questions for Kevin, please do leave them as a reply in this post and I'm sure Kevin would be happy to take them on. Thank you once again, I look forward to your questions and cheers
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