Devdutt Pattanaik's "Sita - A Retelling of the Ramayana"

The chariot stopped far from the city in the middle of the forest. Sita alighted, eager to walk amongst the trees. The charioteer, Lakshman, remained seated. Sensing he had something to say, Sita paused. Lakshman finally spoke, eyes to the ground, your husband, my elder brother, Ram, king of Ayodhya, wants you to know that the streets are full of gossip. Your reputation is in question. The rules are clear on this: a king's wife should be above all doubt. The scion of the Raghu clan therefore has ordered you to stay away from his person and his palace and his city. You are free to go wherever else you please. But you may not reveal to anyone you were once Ram's queen.

Sita watched Lakshman's nostrils flare. She felt his embarrassment and his rage. She wanted to reach out and reassure him, but she restrained herself.

You feel your Ram has abandoned his Sita, dont you? she asked gently. But he has not. He cannot.

He is God; he abandons no one.

And I am Goddess; I cannot be abandoned by anyone.

A mystified Lakshman returned to Ayodhya, while Sita smiled in the forest and unbound her hair.

It will require immense amount of resistance for someone like me who is crazy over mythology to not grab a book with such a blurb. The above text is from Devdutt Pattanaik's Sita - A Retelling of the Ramayana.

Many months before the book released, Devdutt disclosed in interviews that he was working on a retelling of the Ramayana (named Sita) which was based on the similar lines of his retelling of Mahabharata (named Jaya). I had pre-ordered the book on Flipkart (for 33% discount) two months before the release but instead bought it from Delhi airport (at M.R.P.) one day before Flipkart was going to deliver it. Waiting is such a waste of time when it comes to certain things. Isn't it?

This is the second book review on my blog. You can read the first one here. By now, you must have realized that I do not write book reviews regularly and there is hardly any professionalism involved in my writing. This is only for one reason. I do not read many books.

Also, of the few books that I read, there are fewer that I genuinely feel like discussing about. Only when a book succeeds in giving me goosebumps multiple times (or at least once), do I think of writing its review. And "Sita" is one such book.

Anyway, let's move from my story to that of Ram's Sita or Sita's Ram.

When I started reading the book, it was typically Devdutt talking, beginning with a prologue and setting a mood where one of the characters enters into a situation where he is made to narrate the entire tale. In Jaya, it was Vaisampayana and in Sita, it is none other than Hanuman.

The book begins with the story of Sita's birth in the kingdom of Janak. Tales of other characters of the epic like Shanta (Ram's sister), Parshuram and others appear at relevant points adding data and interest to the main tale. However, Sita is quite a bit different from other retellings of Ramayana because here the epicenter is not Ram but Sita.

The life of Sita has been captured in different phases - the lessons in vedas and upanishads with the sages in the court of Janaka, the forests of adjoining cities where Ram and Lakshman were trained by Vishwamitra, the discussions of Sita with her mom-in-laws and sis-in-laws after she gets married to Ram, Sita's life in forest during Ram's exile, her plight in the palace of Ravana marked by her hopes that her husband will come to her rescue, her stay in Ayodhya after she returned from exile and the exile that later came for her as a result of the rumors among the citizens.

For details, kindly read the book. This post is to tell you why you should read it.

In the first place, why I feel this book is different from any other retelling of Ramayana is that Pattanaik has certainly not written this book from a commercial point of view. By this I do not mean that it hasn't been marketed well or is not reader-friendly. It definitely is. Why I say this is that making money through this book was certainly not his objective.

If you have followed Pattanaik's books and articles before, you will realize how passionate he is about certain ideas and how strongly he believes in making the world aware of them. His ideas about beliefs (subjective reality in his words), becoming empathetic, expanding the mind and his notion of Dharma have always made me more inquisitive about the wisdom in our epics making me read and re-read them. When you read Sita, you realize that he is not just trying to generate cash by retelling an epic in his narrative style; he is actually trying to bring forth his ideas and wisdom through the medium of this epic. The conversations between the different characters in the epic are so well crafted and insightful that while they narrate the story of the epic, they also provoke you to think like never before. After almost every paragraph you will be motivated to pause and think, then think a little more and then introspect heavily on your own life, behavior and personality.

And Devdutt does not do it in the conventional manner by focusing the tale on Ram, rather his epicenter is Sita. Indian audience, who has for long seen the devoted Sita as a victim of patriarchy will be amazed to see how she was the Goddess in her own right, a confident and self-dependent woman who even when abandoned by her husband and his subjects led her life with self-respect. One realizes that on abandoning Sita, Ram faces a more difficult time in the palace than Sita faces in the forest.

Note: I challenge you to read the chapter on Sita's second exile where just before leaving for the forest she explains the palace staff on how to take care of her Ram when she's gone. If you have a blood-pumping organ in your body, you'll be overwhelmed and not getting lachrymal would just be impossible.

Sita is worth a serious read and is one such book that uncovers more and more layers on consecutive readings. Devdutt has done something on the lines of what he has done before, yet he has done it so differently that except for the publisher and the text fonts and size, everything else is unique about this book.

Ramayan: Ultimate Lesson in Positive Attitude

While I write this, I have a fractured foot and a tired mind. Conventionally considered negative. It is in such negative times when the need for the positive is more. This time I try to seek it not from an end of the battery but from the epic Ramayan. (I know it was a bad one to start a post with. I'm sorry.)

Remember the tale of Ramayan - the one narrated by Valmiki, Tulsidas and also Ramanand Sagar? It is the tale of a king who is probably the most widely worshiped form of God in India. Ram. Ekvachani Ram (the person who always keeps his word) , Eka-bani Ram (the archer who always strikes his target with the first arrow) and Eka-patnivrata Ram (the husband solely dedicated to a single wife); the son of Dashrath, husband of Sita, brother of Bharat and Lakshman, the lord of Hanuman, the slayer of Ravana, the seventh avatar of Vishnu and Ram knows what else!

This post is not intended to praise him. Many others do that much better than I do. The post is just to bring out one incident of Ram's life that I feel is a classic example of Positive Attitude. The incident happened just before Ram left for a 14-year exile with his wife, Sita and his brother, Lakshman.

Note: I have no intentions of becoming a threat to Robin Sharma through this post.

The scene goes like this:

Ram's step-mother Kaikeyi received 2 promises from Ram's father when she had successfully averted a lethal attack on her husband in a war. Years later, on the eve of Ram's coronation, Kaikeyi used the 2 promises when she got insecure of her son Bharat's future. She believed that after inheriting the throne Ram would wipe out his younger brothers to secure his right to the throne. The conditions for Dashrath to fulfill were:

• Ram would renounce the right to the throne and give it to Kaikeyi's son Bharata
• Ram would lead his life in the forest as a hermit for 14 years. 

While the first promise was to ensure a safe future for Bharata, the second promise was in expectation that keeping Ram away from the subject's eyes would reduce the probability of any resistance coming from the masses.

The conditions came as a shock for Dashrath who alternated his son Ram's name with his breaths. To renounce the throne when Ram was the eldest and the most deserving of all and on top of that living the hardships of a forest-life - how could a father order his beloved son so? But he had to keep the legacy of the clan too - Raghukul reeti sada chali aayi, praan jaye par bachan na jaayi (The legacy of Raghu Clan has always been upheld; one can sacrifice his life but never take back his word).

Dashrath's dilemma made him sick and he was sulking within the boundaries of his room when his son Ram entered and asked what the matter was. Even on continuous persistence, he was unable to reveal what was killing him inside. Then Ram requested Kaikeyi to tell him what his father was unable to tell and he promised that he would do whatever it took to mend the situation. She finally told Ram the entire deal.

Dashrath who was so grief-struck that he couldn't utter a word broke into tears. Kaikeyi, who disclosed the conditions to Ram with a heart of stone wondered what would follow. What would Ram do? Would Ram rise against his father and step-mother for throne? Would Ram turn the entire nation that worships him against his parents? What? What would he say now?

Ram smiled and said, "Is it? Is it only this much? I thought that some serious calamity had downed upon us that both of you were being so serious. Bharata's inheriting the throne of Ayodhya would be the happiest event for me to witness. The sense of Dharma and jurisdiction of my younger brother is unparalleled and I am sure he will be the greatest ruler in the history of Ayodhya. And as far as the second condition is concerned, I guess some good karma of my past life have taken effect that I am going to get 14 more years of my life to live in forest with the saints and sages and learn more about vedas and the world. Your love for me has given me such great happiness mother that I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I shall follow the two conditions with no delay." Kaikeyi was stunned! She could never imagine that Ram would let go off the power of the throne and pleasures of the palaces so easily.

Imagine for once! The eldest son of the king, favourite of the people, most powerful of all warriors and clearly most capable prince, is suddenly deprived of everything he has on the eve of his coronation. Not only that, he has to spend 14 years after this not in the palace but in the forest as a hermit. And he accepts it whole-heartedly! Even in the most difficult hardships that his step-mother lays for him, he finds happiness and the opportunity to grow and become even better. Isn't it quite contrary to what we do in today's world when the smallest of things go wrong around us? We feel cheated, indignant and victimized in spite of being aware of our limitations and mistakes, and always hunt for someone who can be blamed.

Can we too try to think of our difficulties in Ram's way? Can we too see the poverty of our nation as an area of tremendous growth, improvement and opportunities? Can we too see the rising number of crimes as the indicators of a dire need to educate the masses more effectively? Can we too see the time of getting ill and bed-ridden as the opportunity to read more books? Can we too see the release of Chennai Express as a time when we need to seriously rethink about the quality of Bollywood movies?

Too heavy a post. Right? I feel that too. But a point worth considering. Isn't it? So let's start seeing the things around us in a positive light, the way Ram did, and figure out whether it makes us feel better or not. I hope it will. If it does, please leave a comment below. Not that you can not send a mail to me personally or call me to tell how you transformed your life and that of others but I am looking forward to increasing the comments on my blog too. The post mentions Lord Ram. I cannot lie.

 Leaving you with a picture of the classic optimist.