Sometimes a Book is just not for you, does not matter what. In this instance, I will attribute it to my lack of open-mindedness though even that cannot be entirely to blame. I very much enjoyed Sita Sings the Blues - a very unorthodox but clever take on Sita. Peter Brook did a nice job with Mahabharat though not everyone is a fan. Maybe I had very different expectations of a book about Kaikeyi which collided harshly with something like this very early on:

He must have shoved Shantanu out of their mutual hiding spot to distract me. I spun, chasing Yudhajit around the stable, knowing as I did that I could never beat him in an outright footrace. He rounded the corner out of sight, and from just beyond the wall came a strangled shout. A second later, my shin collided with bony flesh, and I fell onto a tangled heap of bodies, Yudhajit right below me. “I got you!” I shouted breathlessly. Someone, probably Shantanu, groaned. I rolled off the pile and onto the hard ground, laughing, asking if they knew where Mohan was, when I saw legs coming toward me.

Something felt strangely off-putting about having Kaikeyi in such context and having her act out her destiny much like a character out of Gossip Girl (a show I completely enjoyed) - with an opening gambit like this, there is no other way this can end. There is a place and time for everything and this is entirely missing the mark as far as I am concerned,