I did not discover Dhruvadevi through history. I found her, decades ago, in Jaishankar Prasad’s Hindi play Dhruvaswamini (1933), which I shortlisted, as one of the options which my fledgling theatre group could potentially stage.
Unlike the Draupadi archetype, who was gambled by her husband(s), here was a woman, who refused to be traded like property. The Gupta queen stood up against a patriarchal structure, defied the orthodoxy and shattered the stereotype of queens and women in ancient India that history and mythology consistently serves us. She was bold, had strong opinions, and was willing to, dangerously, act upon them.
I wanted to, so deseperately, stage the play.
However, my endeavour to understand her world ended fairly quickly when I could not find a female lead who could play the role. However during the play reading sessions, I did peek into the queen’s world. There was something compelling, and unsettling about Dhruvadevi at the same time.
In the years that followed, I did find surprising historical tidbits about Dhruvadevi. Like the fact that she married her brother-in-law Chandragupta. Or that she was the mother of the illustrious Gupta kings Kumaragupta & Govindagupta.
The more I researched the times, the era, the fragments of the ancient play (Devichandraguptam written by Vishakhadatta), the more questions I had.
I wondered what happened to her weak husband Ramagupta, what choices Dhruvadevi had to make, why the so-called barbarian Saka king coveted her. I also wondered what role she might have played in the rise of Guptas, and the ushering of the Gupta Golden Age. The more clues I found, the more I was convinced that Dhruvadevi was a queen history had erased, conveniently forgotten.
Dhruvadevi refused to leave me alone. And then Covid came, as a blessing in disguise, bringing the breathless, hyper-active city of Mumbai to a halt. In that pause, Dhruvadevi crept in surreptitiously. She knew that she had my full attention. And I began writing her.
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Write to Sarvajeet on authorsarvajeet@gmail.com
Sarvajeet Dinesh Chandra 
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