About
Author: Volga (India)
Genre: Mythological
Setting
Place: India
Time: Ancient
My Rating (see what this means)
My Subjective Rating: 3
My ‘Objective’ Rating: 2.44
Introduction
< P. Lalitha Kumari’s (Volga’s) novel – The Liberation of Sita is a revisionist re-telling of the Indian Epic Ramayana. The book presupposes significant familiarity with Ramayana, which can to a large extent be taken for granted in India >
Ramayana, like most epics surviving thousands of years, has many hundred versions varying between geographical and cultural regions extending to the wider south-east Asia (Valmiki’s, Tuslidas’, Kamban’s to name a few popular ones in the Indian subcontinent). Often the variations of the versions can reveal the cultural and political history of the time and place they were envisioned as well as the politics of the writer.
Well, Volga, the writer of this novel was, for a time being, a communist and remains a feminist. Her revision of the Ramayana is from Sita’s (the wife of the protagonist’s) perspective. It is a refreshing and provocative take on a masterful epic.
Review
Ramayana and Mahabharata, the two Indian epics have survived thousands of years of churn of history – they have been challenged, re-imagined, critiqued. Which is unsurprising as value systems from the past offer a lot to be critiqued by modern sensibilities.
It will be difficult for the most passionate of supporters to argue that Ramayana reflected attitudes that can be classified as feminist – even across versions from the Shakti tradition (Shaktism is a goddess-centric tradition of Hinduism). Volga, by picking 4 women characters in the Ramayana, explores the journey of Sita – Ram’s wife – as she navigates the unfairness that the male-chauvinistic-piggy attitudes of the times subjected her through. It is an interesting take which I nonetheless found somewhat wanting.
- The choice for revisionism :
Surpanakha, Ahalya, Renuka, Urmila – the four women the author choices were reasonable choices – allowing exploration of critical themes – anger, identity, trust, duty. All women leads (with the arguable exception of Surapankha) suffered from obvious injustices – strong enough basis to warranter a discussion. So, at times, I couldn’t see why revisionism was required to make the case in the first place.
For instance – In Urmila’s story, the narrator suggest that Lakshman, her husband, left for exile without meeting her. (This was not the case in the OG Valmiki Ramayana). Wouldn’t Urmila’s anger still have been valid even without the additional excuse provided for it ?
2. Insufficient equivalency
Occasionally, I felt that the resolution of the story sidestepped the key challenge to it.
For instance – Ahalya’s story was the most provocative of the lot. Her advice to Sita – “Never agree to trail (to prove your chastity)” was well warranted. But Sita’s situations – where even if she were no longer ‘pure’, shouldn’t have mattered – seemed different from how Ahalya positioned her own. Certainly it should matter if ones partner cheated in a marriage out of their free will!
3. Caricaturized feminism
Sita’s character felt inconsistent between stories – where she is very decisive at times and vary naive at others. She seems to conveniently forget character growth if it didn’t suite a particular story. And at least once, the advice Sita receives in her journey sounded like caricaturized feminism not unlike when Rachel and Monica in Friends (sitcom) read a feminist book. ‘You go Girl‘ type of tone.
Picture Credits:
- All artwork: Devdutt Patnaik