Bengaluru sets its date to revisit the tales of the queens of India

That

gender

stereotyping is deep-seated in history is no secret, so much so that even the fearless queens, who made a mark in our glorious past, were counted only after the kings. The ranis receiving the kind of gratitude bestowed on the rajas was a rare thing even then. Storyteller

Vikram Sridhar

’s much-talked-about performance-session,

Ranis of India

, puts the spotlight on the heroic tales of those long-forgotten

queens

of our country.

This International Women’s Day, Vikram is bringing as many as 30 such unheard stories to the audience. “This

storytelling

session is an attempt to have relook the information that we have about the ranis of our country, and add our own perspective to it. The aim is not just to revisit, but also question our understanding of the queens. There was a reason queens used to sit next to the kings — because, they were equally powerful,” he says.

One of the stories is that of Rani Abbakka Chowta, who was the first Tuluva queen of Ullal, in coastal Karnataka. She fought the Portuguese in the latter half of the 16th Century. “No one had expected her to take up the challenge, but she did and won the battle too,” says Vikram, whose research on this subject went on for nearly four years. Then there was the little-known ‘Pepper Queen’, also known as Rani Channa Bhairadevi, who was popular for her fierceness and patriotism. The session also music and sound effects, with other theatrical elements. “With these stories from across the nation, I am trying to change our perspective on what we knew about the Indian queens until now,” Vikram signs off.