The forgotten princess

Avoiding self-pity, the forgotten princess emerges as a woman of courage and conviction as she conducts herself independently for fourteen long years of separation from her husband. 

One wonders why Valmiki devoted only four lines in Ramayana on Urmila, Sita’s sister and wife to Rama’s devoted brother Lakshman, who was asked to stay back while her husband escorted his brother and her sister to the forest for fourteen long years? Legend has it that despite being ready to accompany him, Urmila was advised against it as her husband would have little time for her, other than serving the couple in the forest. She was found missing from the rest of the epic, apparently in deep sleep, only to be woken up after fourteen years to witness Rama’s coronation. 

Unseen and unheard, Urmila is considered one of the forgotten heroines of Indian literature by Rabindranath Tagore. Valmiki may have considered Urmila as a minor character, but in his poetic version of the epic, noted poet Mythili Sharan Gupta has made Urmila the central character in Saket. Even in Telugu literary play Urmila Devi Nidra, Urmila has been placed on a higher pedestal than Sita as an ‘ideal wife’. Intriguing, however, is how must have Urmila negotiated the situation when she was neglected by those two whom she loved the most, husband Lakshman and sister Sita?  

In her absorbing narrative recreated out of mythology and folklore, Kavita Kane narrates the story according to Urmila in Sita’s Sister. Despite being left out and let down, Urmila did accost Lakshman on his unilateral decision, wondering why he would need to go when he wasn’t exiled. Even while accepting the inevitable; Urmila does not shy away from seeking her legitimate rights knowing well that her sacrifice will help Lakshman earn nobility by serving his brother. Yet, she avoids wallowing in self-pity and emerges as a woman of courage and conviction as she conducts herself independently over the following fourteen years. 

Urmila may have been wasted away in sleep, as folklore has it, for fourteen long years, but the author fleshes out a hitherto unknown character of Urmila by using the metaphor of ‘sleep’ as an interpretation for ‘self-realization’, dismissing the symbolic representation of sleep for a married woman sans her husband is supposed to sink into. Instead, she excels herself as a devoted daughter-in-law, an astute administrator, a talented painter and a great scholar.   

Sharing space with respected scholars like Vashishta, Markandeya and Jaabali at the prestigious brahmanyagna, Urmila questions the rationality of religion and its influence on the nature of religious truth rather than seeking the divinity in religion. Waking out of her proverbial sleep, Urmila discovers herself not just the woman of passion as her name so defined but one whose heart and mind had come together in intellectual and spiritual enlightenment. Could she have discovered the scholar in herself without experiencing pain, separation and detachment? In fact, her separation from Lakshman became her meditation, her spiritual birth and her salvation.  

Sita’s Sister discovers many facets of Urmila, which never got a respect of place in the grand narrative. In her fresh interpretation of the epic, the author delves into the life of a woman who is forced to put her life on hold. Like a tower of strength, Urmila not only tended her feminine duties towards women in the palace but lent administrative hand in the affairs of the kingdom in the absence of Bharat. Her role gets acknowledged by members of the palace as the one ‘who made it the home one wants to return every single day’. Urmila performed the dharma of a wife, a daughter-in-law but never got an answer to her nagging question ‘what is the dharma of the husband to her wife’? 

By giving a fictional spin to the grand old story, the author peeps into the life of one of the prominent unsung characters and offers insights into her mind and her actions. Urmila offers contrasting images of parents’ home and the one she gets married into. While she enjoyed freedom of thought and action at her parents’ place, the royal palace in contrast was just to its people but cruelest to its own family members. Yet, she rarely resented her existence in the palace. Dissension to her was part of seeking light at the end of the tunnel. 

Valmiki had reasons not to delve deeper into the psyche of Urmila who, in her own way, helped everyone in the royal palace to smile. ‘Learn to smile, that small curve can straighten lot of things’. Sita’s Sister is an immensely readable and absorbing story that lets the reader get to see other side of the story, relevant to our times. 

Sita’s Sister 
by Kavita Kane 
Rupa, New Delhi. 
Extent: 311; Price. Rs 295

This review was first published in Speaking Tree (The Times of India), on Oct 18, 2015.

A symbol of prodigious tolerance

The narrative strengths of epics and legends lie in their varied renderings, to suit changing times and diverse thinking. 

It is through such individual interpretations that epics not only retain their contemporary relevance but are kept alive across generations. No surprise that there exist as many as 300 versions of Ramayana. As long as these multiple awakenings are viewed without prejudice and subjectivity, these can contribute to enhancing the philosophical underpinnings of the texts. 

Ramayana is not only a story of the saintly Ram, the morally upright Sita, the dutiful Lakshman and the devilish Ravana, but it is as much a philosophical discourse on moral issues as an epic battle between the good and the evil. Ironically, the glorification of war to annihilate the ‘evil’ subsumes subtext of mental tussle its many characters have had to undergo to uphold the fabrics of a so-called ideal society. One amongst them was Angad, who had to overcome moral predicament of supporting Ram, who had killed his father Vali. How young prince of Kishkindam may have negotiated the burning fury of revenge in discharging his duties towards the state, under his uncle Sugriv’s regime who was accomplice in the killing of his father remains a riddle? 

To forget Angad in our understanding of the epic is to be callous with both mythology, as well as history. In The Vigil, translated from the Malyalam modern classic Oorukaaval, Sarah Joseph explores the distress and dilemma of Angad, who had to suffer ignominy and the insult heaped on him by his father’s killers. Not only was there a denial of justice, but the young boy was forced to carry on his shoulders the one who had killed his father. Was that the price Angad had to pay in the quest for building the ‘Ram Rajya’?

By giving a fictional spin to the grand old story, the author offers a comparative assessment of the historical and political dimensions of the three kingdoms of that era – Ram’s Ayodhya, Angad’s Kishkindam and Ravana’s Lanka. Much like in the present, it offers the familiar story of forcible annexation, territorial expansion and political control. Kishkindam was as much humiliated as Angad. Its lush green bamboo forests were destroyed for making quivers, and for meeting the requirements of Ram’s army the region had to suffer an unprecedented famine. 

Angad was firm that war could not bring any greatness to his country. Yet, he was forced to take part in it because avoiding the war could have brought greater misery to his people at the hands of Lakshman. By connecting the events of the bygone era with the happenings of the modern age, the author brings some of the contemporary ethical, social and environmental concerns to light. The unheard viewpoints reflect that there is more in the story than mere song of the victor.  

Notwithstanding his own humiliation, Angad was witness to the shocking humiliation Sita had to go through at the hands of Ram. In responding to her husband’s accusations after the war, Sita had gently reminded Ram that he has only thought of her as a body without a mind. Angad saw the consent to Sita’s fire ordeal as an act of injustice, to which he had become accustomed to in his life. These are fresh interpretations the book raises, some of which may remain questionable, letting the reader get hitherto unheard viewpoints to draw his/her insights on the contemporary relevance of the greatest epic of all times. 

Angad is a peripheral character in the epic, yet viewing the story through his eyes offers radical interpretations of the episodes. Angad found solace in the company of Maruthi who instilled much needed tolerance in his young mind: ‘there is some right in the opposite point of view too’. Much of what Angad might have gone through remains unsaid and unwritten, yet he emerges a gentle, caring and dreaming hero without whom the story of victory could not be completed.

The Vigil 
by Sara Joseph 
Harper Perennial, New Delhi. 
Extent: 287; Price. Rs 350

This was first published in Speaking Tree (The Times Of India) on October 4, 2015. 

With apologies to Valmiki

The story is familiar but the script is fresh, brought forward to the age of sprawling malls and expanding metros. Breathing new life into the epic, Samhita Arni has recast the characters of Ramayana entangled in today’s world. Packed with political overtures, it smells of dynastic politics, democracy conundrum, gender disparity and rising inequality. Life is not as clean and simple in modern-day Ayodhya.

The mythological retelling of Ramayana is stylishly written, exploring the human side of its incarnated characters. Not only do masses get to hear their revered king live on television, journalists raise discomforting questions to the simian military chief at the press conference. As the powers-that-be shrug to hide the truth, people question the mysterious disappearance of their queen.

Gripping till the end, it is a narrative that has sub-stories which have rarely been told. The Missing Queen pieces together the untold stories of the wounded whose sacrifices and sufferings go unnoticed in the creation of a glorious nation-state. Sugriva’s political ambition, Angad’s embedded frustration and Surpanakha’s raging anger seem as much part of the story now as it might have been when the epic was first written.

War, in many ways, is merciful to men,’ writes Arni. ‘It makes them heroes if they are the victors. If they are the vanquished - they do not live to see their homes taken, their wives widowed’. While the brutal war was fought around Sita, she was sacrificed for the sake of the empire. Wasn’t Sita the price that Ram has, unwittingly, paid to rule an empire? The Missing Queen speculates many such questions in weaving a thrilling story.

Credit goes to Valmiki for not only creating timeless characters but carefully editing the script for any controversies. Those who read between the lines rewrote their versions of the epic, bringing objectivity to the one-sided narrative. No wonder, we have three hundred versions of Ramayana. The strength of the epic and its characters lie in them being relevant even today, provoking us to use the backdrop of the script to raise uncomfortable questions to the powers that be. The fact that we can feel the characters of the epic in our lives is a tribute to the imagination of the writer.

Having written her first book, The Mahabharatha: A Child’s View, at the age of eight, mythological retelling seems to be flowing in Samhita Arni’s pen. Many of the questions she has sought to explore in the book have crossed many a minds. Yet, there are many sub-stories yet to be told. Urmila’s version of Ramayana surely tops the list, her anonymous existence during those fourteen years when her husband was away. And who will not want to read the supreme sacrifice of Vibhishana, whose character has been conveniently underplayed in the creation of the empire. Clearly, there is more to the epic than what has been told and re-told down the centuries. Revisiting the epic brings in fresh insights, a process that reinforces faith of the reader and the believer in the characters....Link

The Missing Queen

by Samhita Arni

Viking, New Delhi

192 pages, Rs 399