– Chitra Divakaruni Bannerjee
“Red. But of course. How else could I write my story except in the colour of menstruation and childbirth, the colour of the marriage mark that changes women’s lives, the colour of the flowers of the Ashoka tree under which I had spent my years of captivity in the palace of the demon king?”
This was the most impactful and relatable description in the prologue of this book that gave me goosebumps and a strange energy to dig my nose in it when Sita , the goddess we’ve known for years became a divine yet humane woman for me , she could describe all that in this color what she has been through that we have heard of since years but know barely anything of. This is not just the story of Sita but all the women of that epic Saga we’ve been seeing and listening and enacting year after year. This is much more about Kaushalya, Kaikeyi ,Urmila ,Surpanakha and Mandodri . We have been told stories and the character details from the spectacle of men and patriarchy and even if we wish to feel how they developed that character we fail to do so, because patriarchy has been a part of our stories too which we never recognize and accept it to be the default setting.
Pick this book, because we need Sita to be our Goddess, not just because she bore a lot of trouble helping her husband during exile or restraining herself during her stay in Lanka. But because she chose to do it and because we come across a lot more than is shown in Ramayana, it can only be here in ‘Sitayana’. I would call it a feminist book and a beautiful book. The word beautiful will be central to this piece. The book is beautifully written, the cover is beautiful, the characterization is beautiful, the scenes are beautiful, the ideologies of these women are beautiful. Chitra Bannerjee is beautiful with her words , she had the liberty to portray the male characters extremely negative too as mythology allows you to do so but she focuses more on the female minds involved here and how they’d have worked .The incident where Surpanakha’s nose is mutilated was spoon fed to us all these years but you’ve to read this book to see what actually was Sita’s take on this whole scene and Surpnakha’s state of mind before declaring her a monster (we’ve already accepted her as one but give it a read for this particular scene and see for yourself what suits best).
Other major journeys that Chitra’s Sita takes you through and reflects upon in the forest of enchantments are the multiple layers and different aspects of love and the comfort plus major healing powers that nature’s beauty beholds.
“For the sake of my sons, I made myself live when it would have been much easier to give up and die than to go through the pain of having the person you love most abandon you. For the sake of my daughters in the centuries to come , I must now stand up against this unjust action you are asking of me.” This is an excerpt from the epilogue that I’d leave at the end. We all know how Ramayana comes to an end but why Sita choose to do what she does is because she wanted her daughters in the centuries to come, the daughters that we are today to balance between Dharma and love and yet give Self-respect the position it deserves.
