Abstract
Brother Cobra, Mother Bitch: Ethics and Ecology in Marathi Women's Storytelling	by	Vidyut Aklujkar
This paper examines the Kahāṇī genre of women's ritual storytelling from Maharashtra. With the help of my own stylistic translations of a few popular stories, I delineate the two major concerns that these stories address, namely, a Karma-based complex ethics of rewards and retribution through rebirths, and ecological awareness of the inter-relatedness of species.� I discuss the social significance of the stories and the tension between the text and its context. I highlight the problematic placement of this genre in its ritual context by focusing on the anti-ritual import of one celebrated story.� Finally I point out how these Kahāṇī stories defy classification as either myth or folktales, and how they incorporate aspects of both.
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