ABSTRACT
In re-situating the epic in the present, Sunil Gangopadhyay tracks how modernity has altered man's relationship with the community and thus reconstituted the structure of humanity. This chapter examines the novel in light of the Mahabharata, tracing Gangopadhyay's use of allusions from the epic. Gangopadhyay's Bengali novel Arjun views the unfolding of Indian modernity through the lens of the epic, simultaneously invoking and distancing itself from that epic universe. In addition to the instances of intimate violence that may constitute reasons for emigration, and those that occur during the process of migration, Gangopadhyay, through the stories of two young colony-women, Labanya and Purnima, offers an optic into the difficult struggles of dislocated and dispossessed women. As a composite character, Gangopadhyay's Arjun blends qualities from the Pandava brothers from the Mahabharata. But Gangopadhyay's Arjun, although named after the invincible archer and hero of the Mahabharata, is a much lesser man than his namesake.
