Song of the Ankle Rings: Based on the Silapathikaram

If your husband cheated on you, would you wait for him for years and take him back after he quarrels with his mistress and returns to you?

That�s what Kannagi does; takes back Kovalan after Madhavi falls out with him. Popular culture hails Kannagi as an exemplary wife; would have us believe she was a woman of her times.

But was she?

If that�s true, how then does Madhavi, his courtesan mistress, challenge his morality and question his right to keep a mistress?

Was she the first recorded women�s rights activist in ancient South India?