Shakuntala - The Woman Wronged - Foreword

An extract from the Foreward of the book, written by Prof. Satya Chaitanya -

"(Shakuntala) …… is the story of a woman and a wife. A wife who insisted on equality and respect from her man, who reminded her husband of his duty towards her, who told him what honour is and what an honourable man should do. Such honour in men is something our own times need greatly. She had the courage to stand up for herself, to stand up for all exploited women, who are treated as objects rather than as people, for women who to this day are used for pleasure and then discarded like trash. And she showed this courage openly—by walking right into the royal court, standing there in the presence of all possible earthly power and challenging her man who sat on the throne to do what was right.

Shakuntala is all that a woman should be—independent, assertive, courageous and yet endowed with tenderness, capable of great love, the ability to give of oneself unreservedly, to take risks. Perhaps she imbibed all this from the environment in which she grew up after she was abandoned by her biological father because she was the symbol of his fall, his shame. That environment—the environment of the ashram of a rishi—is India’s richest heritage, the ambience from which the most beautiful things Indian were born. She grew up in an environment where she felt secure—totally secure—loved and cherished. Our girl children today too need to grow up feeling secure, loved, cherished."