'We’ve forgotten Sita'

SAMHITA ARNI has authored the graphic novel, ‘Sita’s Ramayana’. In retelling the epic, she is pleasantly surprised to discover a strong, assertive and powerful Sita. She talks to ANURADHA VARMA 

What prompted your retelling the Ramayana from Sita’s point of view?

As a child abroad, the Ramayana didn’t interest me much because I didn’t find Sita interesting. When I came back to India, I found that every day, the newspaper had some reference or other to the Ramayana. The epic is still very much alive and permeates all aspects of our lives — from politics to reality television. So, of course, I got interested in the epic.

In my grandmother’s generation there were lots and lots of women called Sita; in my generation, I don’t know a single Sita. Women, obviously, don’t want to call their daughters Sita; why name their daughters after a long-suffering, abandoned, self-sacrificing wife? Women don’t want that fate for their daughters.

Yet when I started reading and discovering the other versions of the Ramayana, some had assertive, powerful, strong Sitas. For example, one version has a very interesting explanation for why Janaka required Sita’s suitors to string Shiva’s bow. When Sita was a young child, Janaka found that she had lifted the bow. So Janaka, determined, that if his daughter was so strong, he must find a man who could match her in strength, and thus he devised the swayamvara.

How do you view Sita and her journey?

I think we’ve forgotten who Sita is. Sita’s Ramayana came partly out of feeling the need to have a retelling of the Ramayana that gave Sita a voice. I think a lot of women who are single mothers, in tough situations, who are struggling to make a life for themselves in what is still very much a man’s world, can find inspiration in Sita’s courage.

We shouldn’t forget the ending of the Ramayana as it is narrated in the Valmiki and many other versions — that Sita chooses, instead of returning to Ayodhya and being Rama’s queen, to go back to where she came from — the earth. She makes a choice; she strikes out on her own. It’s a very powerful, proto-feminist choice.

How do you perceive Rama as a god and also as man, husband and father?

In the dilemmas that Rama and Sita face, we can find an echo of our own problems. There are episodes that aren’t always neat, aren’t black and white — I think they should provoke us to think, engage with the text, and ask questions. If we cease to engage with the epic, I think we start to forget what a powerful and influential story it is.

Can this be called a feminist Ramayana? The women’s anguish is portrayed well: from Mandodari’s pain to Tara’s anguish on being asked to return to former husband Sugriva and also Rama’s lashing out at Sita after his victory, when he says, “Sita, you are free. I have freed you. You can do whatever you want. Go wherever you want.”

Unfortunately, we live in a time that when you call something feminist, it immediately makes people think that it’s only for women. So I’m hesitant to call it a feminist Ramayana for that reason — I’d really like little boys to go out and read this. I hope, I’ve written it in a way that appeals to them, too. Moyna (illustrator) and I are both women, and so our own engagement with Sita and the Ramayana will be coloured by that. I think that’s what made me identify with Mandodari, Tara and Sita.

And the bit about Rama’s conversation with Sita after his victory — I’d like to clarify since many have thought that this is a feminist insertion — that’s actually taken from the Valmiki Ramayana. I met Moyna, a Patua artist; she had a really interesting take on the Ramayana that was based on the Patua folk version. The retellings from the oral tradition, which evolve and change over time and with each storyteller, interested me. Moyna’s version — from Sita’s point of view like the 16th century Bengali poetess Chandrabati's version— was interesting.

You wrote a children’s version of the Mahabharata when you were barely 12. And now, at 27, you are writing on the Ramayana. Which epic engages you more today and why?

Both epics engage me in different ways, and for different reasons. I think the Mahabharata is an epic that is always relevant — someone once said that the Mahabharata is about war, and so it is relevant to every experience of conflict. Maggi Lidchi-Grassi, whose three-volume, The Great Golden Sacrifice of the Mahabharata came out recently, draws parallels between the Mahabharata and World War II.

Dharamvir Bharati’s play on the Mahabharata, Andha Yug, is influenced by Partition. When Peter Brook dramatised and filmed the Mahabharata in the ’80s, his choice of an international cast showed that the epic is relevant to all cultures; it speaks to every experience of conflict, including Vietnam and the Cold War.

My favourite character is Karna. He’s a tragic hero, and his story and fate reveal that conflicts are always more complex and tragic, that the ideas of good and evil aren’t absolute and are very complex.The Ramayana
interests me differently. I find the innumerable versions fascinating, from shadow puppet performances to the epic versions in various languages.

The way the epic has travelled outside India and evolved in Indonesia, a Muslim country, and in Buddhist Thailand is something we often neglect. It’s a pan-Asian tradition, and the proliferation of the epic is fascinating. Every re-teller of the story has added a new nuance, and has a different perspective on the story. As for characters, I find Sita fascinating. I’m also very partial to Trijatha. All the female characters, from Kaikeyi to Urmila and Surpanakha, intrigue me.

What is your forthcoming book, ‘Searching for Sita’, about?

It’s a ‘speculative fiction feminist thriller’ which situates the Ramayana in today’s world — there are phones, Internet, 24-hour news channels, etc. The main character is a journalist, who wants to interview Sita but can’t find her, and in the process, meets all kinds of characters like Kaikeyi and travels to Lanka, Mithila, and gets into trouble. Hopefully, it should be out in 2012.

http://www.speakingtree.in/view-article/Weve-forgotten-Sita