u/Electrical-Radio-429

After watching Krishnavataram movie, even though I have so many opinions on it, but I am still glad it's been made and presented as it's a step towards our epics being able to get the screens they deserve in future.

I always have Devi Satyabhama close to my thoughts, and the movie triggers it; I am glad it did. So this write-up is about my interpretation and thoughts on how I heard and keep Stayabhama in my mind.

Bhama’s Krishna

The pearl of Dwarka

I grew up hearing Krishna’s name always accompanied by Radha when the question of divine love came up.  Like you hear Krishna, and you add Radha before the name of Paranthaman, who ascended into Dwaparyug with so much mischievous and so much nutkhut behaviour. Cause one without another doesn’t feel complete.

In the sanctum of love, I heard whispers of Radha Krishna, and in the sanctum of temple walls where I stood to worship, I witnessed Rumini Krishna. The Moustache Madhava, who was Sarathy to his Partha, hence named ParthaSarathy, stood tall, accompanied by his Priye Rukmini, his Lakshmi of Dwaparyug, with my hands clasped and heads bowed as the mouth whispered prayers, asking for wishes that lips can’t speak out.

In the same sanctum of the temple, someone stood to Maayon's left. I was curious who the second one was. It’s not until I have known the name I know through one who wore a garland that was supposed to be offered to lord Ranga, but chose to wear it first, and the lord accepted with his whole heart. Kothai, the one who ruled Love, the one who ruled Kanna, and the one who ruled Tamil, is hence called “Andal”.

Who is this Andal? She is the only female poet among the 12 Alwars–the saints of Vainavam. She is also said to be the avatar of Bhudevi, who later merged with her Hari in Srirangam, with her favourite Ranga, the one who sleeps atop Adisesh on the cosmic ocean. From this, my heart and mind exploded with a million questions: if Andal is the avatar of Bhudevi, did Bhudevi take any other avatars before Andal? Like how Rukmini is said to be an avatar of Maha Lakshmi, did Bhu Lakshmi take an avatar along with Krishna?

That’s when, through the echoes of time and space, the name landed into my ears and into my heart, which still beats. 

“SatyaBhama”

Who is SatyaBhama? Oh, the one who is egotistic? The one who always fights with her Hari? The one who is always jealous and wants Krishna for herself? Her? 

But wait, how would Bhudevi the Bhumi mata be anything of the sort, like it? She is the most selfless, loving, and caring mother to everyone. The one who holds us, and even with everything we mortals did to her, she always protected her kids. Then why? What made SatyaBhama portray such sense? It doesn’t make sense at all, right?

Was she really like that? That's what kept me awake, of course, she can’t be, what my heart whispered.

That's when my search for who SatyaBhama is began. And in that search, I found myself closer and more in love with her than I could express. Even though Rukmini holds my heart, SatyaBhama holds my mind forever, enslaved in every possible way, just as she was with her Kanha.

The more I read of her and learn about her, the more I am entrapped like she is, this Mohini that entraps people with her beauty, with her way of talking and with her love. After all, she is Bhumi Mata, who has held me since I was born into this mortal body and will hold me even if my soul leaves her to attain moksha; she will forever hold me, as I am as much a part of her as I am of my parents.

She is Playful, she is natkhaut as same as our dear Kanha, she is a warrior, and she knows her worth that none can bring down, and most importantly, she knows what she wants and never compromises. She is an ultimate icon of today’s world as much as she is of Dwapryug.

It’s not until I heard the song, that one song that lives rent-free in my mind and the song I have to chase the meaning of the lyrics. “Sathyabhame Sathyabhame” from the Kannada movie “Ravi Chandra”. But it’s not the original I heard; it's the remix by Sanjith Hegde that made Eem stop and go full spiral, searching for the original. And I am glad I did, and I am glad that in a way the path to me was shown by the dear Bhama herself, if not how I would never have been able to blush, laugh and giggle at the lyrics and imagine the play that Kanha went to attain Bhama’s love?

As the lyrics speak of the poetry, even Narayan has to ask forgiveness of his Narayani, and how Satyabhama made him kneel to leave everything and appease her.

To imagine the Leela just by hearing the lyrics, as I sway to the beat of Manmohana and his Mohini, and imagine the Leela that must have gone on.

Sathyabhāme Sathyabhāme kōpavēne nannali

Sathyabhama, Sathyabhama, why this anger toward me?

Sarasake karedare virasava tōruve yēke nannali 

When I call you for love, why do you show such coldness toward me?

Yēke nannali… yēke nannali…

The whole song made my heart skip a beat many times as I find myself watching the leele happening in front of me. But it got me thinking…why was our dear Bhama angry with our Kanha? What made her so angry that our Krishna had to try to pacify her? Is it because he does not give her enough attention? Or is it because he gives more attention to his other queens?

All the questions, but no answers. After all, I am just a mortal, am I not?

So I did my own research and took my own sweet time to understand the band and the Leela of the sweet Bhudevi. Of course, I am not yet fully travelled through all the Puranas and ithihasas, but I am there, and I am reading, cause savouring each verse’s taste better than rash reading, cause we all have a lifetime to get to our destiny, don’t we?

As I read, the more I fell in love with SatyaBhama, the more sense it made. She is Bhudevi avatar, the Bhumi Mata, who is the epitome of calmness, selflessness, the mother to all creatures that wake on this soil, to all the materialistic wealth that this world possesses, she is the shakti to it. She doesn’t get angry at us mortals for literally making her suffer; she protects us all.

And yet, in Dwapar Yug, she walks into Krishna’s palace with her chin lifted, never covering, and her voice unwilling to soften even for Narayan himself. The same Bhumi who bears everything in silence chooses, in this avatar, to bear nothing quietly. She argues and sulks. She has demands, and most importantly, she makes her Kanha kneel.

So how does the all-bearing Bhumi Mata become the fiery queen who makes even Narayan kneel? That contradiction is where I had to stop and look closer. Because if she is truly Bhudevi, then nothing about her in Dwapar can be a flaw. Everything must have a reason. Everything must be leela.

And the more I read, the more it unfolded like a lotus, petal by petal.

She wasn’t born fierce by accident, of course, she isn’t. She was born fierce because she had to be. You all remember Narakasura, the asura who terrorised the three worlds, who stole the earrings of Aditi herself, who locked away sixteen thousand women in his palace. He was inevitable in all senses because Naraka had a boon. A boon that no one could kill him except his own mother. And his mother was Bhudevi. The earth herself.

So tell me, who else could end him? Who else could lift the bow against her own son to protect the world she also called her child? Only she. Only our Bhama. Krishna flew on Garuda to Pragjyotishpura, yes, but it was Satyabhama who drew the arrow. It was Satyabhama who let it fly. It was Satyabhama who watched her son fall, and then, in the same breath, lifted him into her arms and blessed him to rule in his father’s place.

Tell me, what kind of woman does that? Not a calm one or a soft-spoken one, but a woman who has fire in her. A woman who knows that love sometimes looks like a drawn bow. A woman who is mother enough to give birth, mother enough to grieve, and mother enough to still place dharma above her own womb.

That is Bhama. That is why she had to be the way she was.

And once I understood that, the so-called “ego” started looking different to me. Like a painting I had been staring at upside down all along.

When she demanded the Parijata tree, it wasn’t a tantrum, no. It was a wife who knew her standing. She is Bhudevi, and every flower, every fruit, every tree that exists on this earth belongs to her already. So when Indra’s tree bloomed in Swarga, and not on her soil, of course, she asked. And of course, her Krishna brought it down for her, fighting Indra himself in the sky, because that is what her Kanha does. He doesn’t pacify her by asking her to be smaller. He goes to war with the king of the devas to bring her what she asked for. That is love. That is a husband who sees his wife as an equal, not as someone to be calmed down.

And the Tulabharam — oh, that one cracked me open. She placed her Krishna on one side of the scale and piled gold on the other, all her ornaments, all her wealth, everything she owned, and still the scale wouldn’t tip. And only when Mata Rukmini placed a single tulasi leaf and whispered with love, did Krishna’s side come down.

People read that and say, “See, Satyabhama was proud; she was humbled.” But I read it now, and I see something else entirely. I see Bhama staging the lesson. I see her playing the role of the proud wife so that the whole world, for all the yugas to come, would learn that no amount of gold can weigh down the Lord, of course, not instead of only love can. She didn’t lose that day, but she taught that day. And only Bhudevi, who has held kingdoms and oceans and mountains on her chest, could have known exactly how much gold to pile, exactly how dramatic to make it, exactly when to let Mata Rukmini step in.

That is not ego. That is adhikara. The rightful standing of a queen who knows who she is to her Lord.

And the fights, all the koppa, the sulks, the turning her face away when Krishna comes calling  “Sathyabhāme Sathyabhāme kōpavēne nannali”. I don’t hear that song the same way anymore. It isn’t a fight. It is a love language. It is the way two equals play with each other. Rukmini loves him with devotion; she is Shridevi herself. Radha loves him with longing; she is love itself. But Bhama? Bhama loves him with fire, because she is the earth, and the earth does not love gently. She knows her Kanha. She knows the moustached Madhava better than he knows himself, and she knows that he doesn’t want a wife who only worships him; he wants a wife who will argue with him, who will make him chase her, who will make him kneel and laugh while he kneels.

That is the leela. That is the play. That is why Bhudevi, the calmest of all, chose to wear this particular costume in Dwapar. Because for her, Kanha, she would be anything. Soft as soil for the world. Sharp as a blade for him.

And so, Bhame — let me speak to you now, not about you.

I think I understand now. Or at least, I am beginning to. You were never the angry one. You were never the jealous one. You were the one who refused to be smaller than you are, the one who refused to love your Kanha with anything less than your whole, fierce, blazing self. You held an entire planet on your back and still found the strength to draw a bow against your own son when the world needed saving. You let yourself be called proud so that a tulasi leaf could become the most famous leaf in all of bhakti. You made Narayan ask forgiveness of his Narayani, not because you needed his apology, but because you wanted the world to see that he would.

You are Bhumi. You are a mother. You are queen. You are a warrior. You are the wife who taught Krishna how to kneel and the mother who taught the earth how to bear. You are the pearl Dwarka held in its palm and dared to call its own.

And I, this small mortal who first dismissed you as “the one who fights,” bow my head now. Rukmini may hold my heart, but you—you hold something deeper. You hold the part of me that wants to love without shrinking. You hold the part of me that knows worth is not the same as ego. You hold the part of me that is, after all, made of you.

Sathyabhāme. Sathyabhāme. Forgive this mortal her late arrival. I am here now.

- Nidhi

This will be a long one; please read it at your own risk.

Okay, I need to vent because the "poor struggling indie author" defence is being deployed by people who are arguably the biggest names in the Wattpad India circle right now, and I'm losing my mind.

You know who this is about, the one who thrived in Wattpad Indian space and still does, the one who almost sold out in their paperback the moment it goes live, and first, I appreciate it and congratulate them; it’s not a small achievement. They have active fandoms and many, many fan pages just for their characters; it’s a whole package of popularity and fans. And then somebody points out the AI illustrations in the book, and suddenly it's "I'm just a small author, artists charge 500 dollars, I don't make enough, please understand my plight." Your books had 10 million and 20+ million reads, as well as active subscriptions across multiple platforms. Be so for real right now.

Before I go further let me put my own cards on the table because I am not coming at this from some moral high horse, I am a self published author myself, I have used Pinterest images for my Wattpad book covers and yes I am saying that out loud, but here is the difference and it is a big one, I never sold those books, I never claimed I owned the art, I never printed it and priced it and shipped it as a commercial product, and the day a copyright holder shows up and says "that is mine," you either pay them or you take it down, that is the actual ethical line and it is not complicated, I am also not about to judge a small author who uses Wattpad to reach an audience or who started writing with literally nothing or who is sitting in the non profitable corner of the platform doing it for love, because they are not selling a product and slapping their name on someone else's art as if they made it, that is a completely different conversation. And when I went to publish my own book, did I generate the cover with AI, no, I did not, I could have, the option was right there, it is very much free and instant I could have done it in two minutes, but I am someone who actually paid for it even though my book did not sell much, and you know what, it did not sell much, that is fine, I am genuinely happy with the few people who picked it up and read it, and I worked for that cover, I bought a Canva subscription, I paid for the elements I used, and that is what doing it properly at small scale actually looks like, it is not glamorous and it does not get million reads but it is honest and I have to read through the ethical usage of Canva Pro elements cause you cant sell a element as it is so I have to create mine using that and multiple elements combination and thats how it became righ to use it ethically. So when I see authors who are objectively doing better than me financially pulling out the "I cannot afford artists" card to justify AI-generated interior illustrations in a paperback they are charging full price for, I am sorry, but no, you do not get to use that excuse, I literally paid more than I made and I still did it right, you can too.

Let me say the quiet part loud, if you cannot afford to make a product ethically, you do not get to make the product and still call it ethical, that is just not a thing, a restaurant that can't afford real ingredients doesn't get to serve plastic and shrug to say groceries are expensive sorry, you pay the cost of doing it right, you do it at a smaller scale, or you don't do it, pick one.

But here's the thing, this particular flavour of defense is being made by authors who absolutely CAN afford it, ten million reads in almost each of the books they wrote is not "small author" numbers, selling out paperback runs is not "I'm barely scraping by" numbers, and if you can afford a full time assistant and a social media team and a printing setup and matte covers and no bleed paperbacks and the time to write multiple long form essays defending yourself on Instagram, then you can afford to commission an artist, you just chose not to, and those are different sentences and we should stop letting people swap them.

And about that 500 dollar number that gets thrown around like a force field, can we talk about it for a second, because it is doing so much dishonest work in this argument, the 500 USD figure is what international artists charge, and yes that is a lot of money in rupees, but you know who is not charging 500 USD, a small Indian illustrator, an emerging artist on Instagram or Twitter, an art student looking for portfolio work, a freelancer who would absolutely do a beautiful interior illustration for a fraction of that price and be genuinely thrilled about the credit and the exposure to your fanbase, the country is full of insanely talented illustrators who are RIGHT THERE and you cannot tell me a top tier Wattpad India author with millions of reads cannot find one of them, the 500 dollar quote is being used as a strawman because it sounds shocking and unaffordable, but nobody actually had to hire that specific artist, the choice was never between 500 dollar western illustrator and free AI tool, the choice was always between pay an Indian artist a fair Indian rate and pay nobody and use AI, and one of those just happens to be more profitable for you, which, fine, but stop dressing it up as some tragic financial impossibility, it isn't.

Now here is my actual challenge to every author doing this, if you're using AI for your illustrations, print it in the book, put it on the copyright page, "Interior illustrations generated using AI," that is the whole ask, if you genuinely believe AI art is ethical, if you genuinely believe it is just another tool like spellcheck or a washing machine sensor, then you should have zero problem disclosing it, be proud of your workflow, own it, tell readers exactly what they are buying. But you won't, because you know exactly what happens if you do.

The brain dead readers in the teen Wattpad bubble will still buy it, sure, they will defend you in the comments and call critics jealous, fine, but hand that book to a reader outside the fandom, hand it to someone who actually reads widely, hand it to a working illustrator, hand it to anyone over 25 who isn't already in your parasocial pipeline, watch them flip to the copyright page, see "AI generated illustrations," and put the book straight back on the shelf, because outside the bubble that disclosure reads as exactly what it is, a shortcut and a cheap out, a signal that the author didn't think the book deserved real art. That is why nobody printing AI in their books wants to actually print it in their books, not because of some unfair stigma, but because they know, deep down, that the moment a real reader sees it written in black and white the spell breaks, and the hardworking indie hustling against the odds image collapses into I used a free tool and charged you full price for the result.

The Wattpad whataboutism, because I want to be fair, yes Wattpad writers slap Pinterest images on their covers all the time and I have done it too as I already said, but it is not the same situation and y'all know it, Wattpad covers sit on free reads on a free platform, the Pinterest moodboard on a free fanfic is a copyright issue between the artist and the user, but nobody is selling that fanfic, and the moment a real artist comes knocking the right thing to do is take it down or pay them, simple, the moment you print and bind and price and sell a paperback with AI illustrations in it, you have crossed from vibes on the internet to commercial product built on a tool trained on uncompensated artists, different tier of problem, stop flattening them to dodge the actual point.

The everything uses AI move is also so tired, a washing machine sensor is not trained on scraped portfolios from artists who never consented, your Instagram feed algorithm is not putting illustrators out of business, generative image AI specifically was built by hoovering up the work of the exact people it is now replacing, pretending it is the same category as predictive text on your phone is a magic trick to make the problem disappear, and it doesn't.

And the moral CV section, my god, the 2% to charity, the matte finish covers, the supporting small binderies, the girl child education, genuinely lovely, truly, none of it is responsive to the actual criticism, you can do nice things and cut a corner that hurts working artists, adults can hold both of those in their head at the same time, listing your good deeds is not a get out of accountability free card, it is changing the subject in a sparkly little outfit.

The lines like "if you don't like AI, uninstall Instagram and try living without it" is really triggering, nobody is asking anyone to go live in a forest, they are asking you, specifically, with your specifically large income from a specifically successful book, to not put AI generated illustrations in the paperback you are specifically charging money for, that is the ask it is so small, it is the smallest possible version of the ask.

Also, the "I'm a small author with thin margins" defense is real for some people and I do have sympathy for that, I literally am one of those people, my book did not blow up and that is fine, but the defense is not real for an author with millions of reads and a printing pipeline and a team and sold out paperbacks, at that level you have crossed from indie scraping by into actual small business, and small businesses are expected to pay for the things they use, and especially for a small business in India there are countless brilliant Indian artists right there waiting for the work, the ecosystem is not the desert this defense pretends it is.

So here is my deal, use AI if you want its free country, just print it on the copyright page or let out publically and let your readers decide with full information, let the teens in the bubble buy it anyway, they will, but let the reader who picked your book up at a bookstore or in random search, the one who reads actual books out of passion and love, the one who has zero attachment to your Instagram/wattpad, see exactly what they are paying for, let that reader be the test of how ethical your workflow really is. You won't print it, we both know you won't, and that is the whole answer to the question of whether you really think generated AI art is fine.

Hey everyone,

Just wanted to drop a note here since this community has been part of my journey too.

I've been on Wattpad for ten years. Came here as a teenager who loved reading, and I started writing when I barely knew grammar or how to put a sentence together properly. This platform let me be messy, learn, and figure it out as I went. I grew up here, honestly. Found my voice, made friends, met readers who felt like family.

I've decided to unpublish my works for now, and I'll be deactivating my Instagram soon, too. I just need some time to rest and step away from things for a while. Been feeling pretty heavy lately, and I think the kindest thing I can do for myself is go quiet for a bit.

Big thank you to everyone who read my stuff, left comments, voted, sent messages, and waited patiently when updates were slow. It meant more than you know.

I hope I come back when I'm ready. But even if I don't, this has been a beautiful journey, and I'm grateful for all of it.

Take care of yourselves.

Signing off "for now"

Ival_Nidhi_Writes

Like honestly, I keep seeing posts asking "is the age gap ok??" and it's literally a 25 or 26 year old with a 29 or 30 year old. THAT'S NOT AN AGE GAP. They're both full-grown adults, both in the same life stage, probably doing the same things. It's just a relationship.

If it was 19 and 25, okay yeah I get it, one's barely out of being a teenager and the other's established, the gap is actually doing something also like 22 and 30, yes I get it. But 25 and 28? 26 and 30? 25 and 29? Come on!!!

And then there is always someone asking whether it is weird or normal YES, it's normal. It's the most normal thing ever. 3-5 years between adults is not a gap, it's just two people who didn't graduate the same year. It is not too much, and honestly, anyone saying it is too much is probably still a teenager who thinks 28 is ancient.

The "age gap" tag is supposed to mean something. When I click on it I want the actual trope, the life-stage difference, the dynamic that comes with the years. Not two people in their late 20s were one who happens to be slightly older.

Please. Let the tag mean something and stop asking if it's "ok", they're adults, it's fine.

-- sincerely, a freaking adult....

https://preview.redd.it/913uvph1abyg1.png?width=382&format=png&auto=webp&s=228b47b2a1b4c3fffefd3a3bd836451f1cf8dc9b

Saw this reel going around praising authors for finally calling out the "dark side of Wattpad", specifically how characters get compared to gods, describing the mere characters as gods. And the comments are treating this like a moral awakening.

I'll be honest, I can see why people are uncomfortable. When a deity's name gets dropped into a smutty fic or the fic as shorthand for "hot guy," or not exactly devotional in content, it does feel weird. There's a real argument that using sacred figures as casual aesthetic descriptors flattens them into nothing. I'm not pretending the discomfort is fake.

But I still think the critics are overreaching, and I want to say it out loud.

Wattpad is a casual fiction/romance/fan-fiction platform. It's mostly teenagers and young women writing tropey romance for fun. It's not literature or scripture; nor is it claiming to be either. The whole point of the space is that it's low-stakes, messy, indulgent writing. People come there to escape, not to be theologically rigorous.

Divine comparison in Indian writing isn't even unusual; bhakti poets and Sangam poetry compared lovers to gods, and our films do it constantly as well (Baahubali, RRR, Sita Ramam). It's a cultural reflex. But a teenager who merely writes or compares their characters to a deity in their fic is doing the same thing here when all the above doesn't trigger this much of a wave.

The energy spent policing this stuff is wild. Every space now has to pass a religious-respect test, be it films, books, ads, fanfiction, jokes, or memes. At some point, we have to ask whether scrutinising every casual reference to a deity is actually protecting religion or just making culture more anxious and less playful.

Let Wattpad be cringe. Let teenagers write bad romance with overblown comparisons. That's what fan spaces are for. The minute we start applying scripture-level standards to a platform built for self-indulgent storytelling, we kill the thing that makes it valuable in the first place.

Not everything has to be reverent. Not every space has to carry the weight of religion. Some places should just get to be silly.

What's your take, though? Genuinely curious how others are reading this, let's keep the discussion civil :)

The cutest cultural confusion of my Wattpad journey.

Okay, so I have to share this because it's been bothering my brain in the most adorable way, honestly, my followers? Literal angels. I love interacting with them, and they're so sweet about my writing (it's based on a real-life story, btw).

So one day, a while back, one of my readers commented "Dii, I love you and your writings 🥺"

And I was like… aww, thank you!! But also…. Dii???

Then it kept happening. DMs on Insta, "Dii pls update soon!" Comments on my book - "Diiiii why this cliffhanger" My message board filled with Dii Dii Dii everywhere lmaooo

And I was sitting there like??? WHY DII???

See, here's the thing, where I'm from, we use "Dii" as a suffix for our close female friends, family, or loved ones who are the same age or YOUNGER than us. Like "how are you di?" to my friend, or to my younger sister/cousin. It's casual and close. We literally don't use it for someone older or someone we're not close to; it's not the respectful term in our usage.

So I'm reading these messages, like am I being roasted??? Why is everyone calling me by a term I'd use for my baby cousin, who isn't under my radar, for respect???

Until I finally found out that in Hindi, "Di" is a RESPECTFUL term for an elder sister or older woman.

AND IT ALL MADE SENSE FINALLY!!!!

My sweet readers were showing me LOVE and RESPECT this whole time, and I was confused for WEEKS 😭😭😭

India is so beautifully diverse that it took me an actual cultural deep-dive to realise my readers were being the sweetest little angels possible.

Anyway, to all my lovely readers who call me Dii, I love you all 🥺💕 keep calling me that, I get it now!!

Does anyone else have these cute lost-in-translation moments with their readers?