Myth and Modernity: Rewriting Indian Epics in Contemporary English Poetry

The ancient Indian epics The Ramayana and the Mahabharata have long shaped South Asia’s cultural imagination, embedding ideals of duty, sacrifice, and heroism. In contemporary times, Indian English poets have reinterpreted these narratives within postcolonial and globalized contexts. Their rewritings do not merely replicate traditional plots but instead reframe them to address pressing modern concerns such as gender politics, nationalism, identity, and ecological crisis. By deploying free verse, narrative experimentation, irony, and hybrid forms, poets like Arun Kolatkar, Rukmini Bhaya Nair, Meena Alexander, and Arundhathi Subramaniam infuse mythic material with feminist, postcolonial, philosophical, and political resonances. Kolatkar’s Sarpa Satra retells the snake-sacrifice episode as an allegory of communal violence, while Nair’s Ayodhya Cantos overlays epic motifs onto the Babri Masjid demolition. Alexander relocates Sita into diasporic Manhattan, transforming exile into a metaphor of immigrant identity, while Subramaniam invokes figures like Draupadi and Avvaiyar to critique patriarchy and reimagine women’s voices. Collectively, these poets engage in a dialogue between Indic tradition and modern dissent, transforming myth into a living text that interrogates contemporary society. This study demonstrates how the epics, far from being static heritage, are reinhabited in English poetry as dynamic instruments for cultural critique and identity-formation.