WHAT SITA MUST DO

Thanks to a reimagining of a moment in The Ramayana, a Sanskrit epic from ancient India, I began to look at India's revered deity in another light.

For several years, I’d been hearing about a writer named Volga whose Russian pen-name belied her Telugu origins. Her real name is Popuri Lalita Kumari and in her writings she assumes the pseudonym of “Volga” in remembrance of her older sister who passed away as a teen. Their communist father named Volga after a Soviet girl who was killed by the Nazi Army on the day on which her sister was born.

THE LIBERATION OF SITA (translated by T. Vijay Kumar and C. Vijayasree) is a celebrated feminist work in the annals of contemporary Telugu literature. It was a favorite among my friends in the book club I belonged to during the Covid era and I’d been encouraged to read it. Volga’s book—originally published in 2015 in Telugu under the title “Vimuktha”—can only be described as a Sutli bomb. (According to Google, the Sutli is the noisiest firecracker burst during Diwali for it exceeds the permissible sound barrier of 145 decibels.) Volga won India’s Sahitya Akademi Award in 2015 for this work and at just 97 pages, THE LIBERATION OF SITA is packed with fire power for women across the generations.

As Volga explains in an essay contained in this volume, she simply continues what has been an established practice in Telugu literature in which a tale from mythology becomes the basis for the writer’s muse: “Since the characters are already known to the reader, the author is spared of the effort to introduce them, and can then concentrate on the subject.”

In THE LIBERATION OF SITA, we experience a reimagining of one thread ofThe Ramayana, a story that all Indians have grown up with. The story has always been handed down to us from the perspective of Rama and his accomplishments. In Volga’s work, we begin to experience life from the perspective of Sita. Volga makes us wonder about Sita’s feelings during every moment in the trajectory of her life events.

Following her kidnapping by Ravana, the demon king of Lanka, Sita is carried far away to the kingdom of her captor. Upon her subsequent release, however, Sita’s chastity is in question by the people of Ayodhya and, it follows, Rama, too. Sita, who has not been touched by Ravana during her stay in Lanka, is troubled by the veiled questions about her purity upon her return to Ayodhya. She experiences a multitude of emotions: Her abiding love for the man she has married, her anger at having her morality questioned by a man in whom she has placed implicit trust and her deep disappointment in her husband’s justifications of his stance as what he owes his courtiers and the people of his kingdom.

Soon, Sita embarks on her own journey towards understanding herself and her worth. As she weighs her options, she encounters self-assured, principled women who point the way forward. Like Sita, I too found each of the meetings invaluable and enlightening for I too must deflect the many onslaughts on my womanhood (and my personhood). With every legendary woman she meets, Sita receives more clarity on the murkiness in her life.

Surpanaka, the woman spurned and scarred by Sita’s own husband and his brother Lakshmana, now manages a beautiful garden not far away from where she lives. From Surpanaka, Sita learns how to love herself by looking into nature for guidance.

“To recognize that the response evoked in me by a little bird, which had been pecked and displumed by its fellow birds, was a feeling at once of love and beauty, and to seize that response and understand its meaning—the effort I made to achieve all this was extraordinary.”

Surpanaka’s journey from a place of jealousy and self-loathing to one where she feels no animosity at all towards anyone is a moment of reckoning for Sita. Surpanaka assures her that there are larger things in the world more deserving of her attention.

When Sita meets Ahalya, she is told that no one is morally superior to her. Ahalya’s skepticism seems unduly harsh to Sita during their first encounter. In a shimmering passage, we get to see the standards that Sita is now held to by her husband, a man she loves with every fiber of her being.

“I can’t stay without him even for a day. Neither can he without me. He is unlike other men,” Sita said shyly.

“All men are the same, Sita. Especially in the matter of their wives.”

“My husband is not such a person. He will enquire into truth and untruth.”

“But he does enquire, doesn’t he?” Ahalya said sarcastically.

“Meaning?”

“Meaning…What does conducting an enquiry imply, Sita? Distrust, isn’t it? Wouldn’t it be better, instead, to believe in either your innocence or guilt?”

Sita comprehends exactly what Ahalya tries to tell her only when her own story reaches a tipping point. When Lakshmana arrives in Lanka’s Ashoka vanam to accompany Sita back to Ayodhya, he looks morose. Instead of being joyous at the death of demon Ravana (and thereby Sita’s freedom), he looks taciturn and morose. She has little inkling that it has to do with the message from Rama (Sri Ramachandra) to Sita.

“Then why do you look so sad, Lakshmana? Why isn’t your face cheerful? Your brother has sent you to fetch me, hasn’t he? Let’s go then.”

“I should tell you something, Sister-in-law.”

Sita was beginning to panic. On the one hand, the din made by the victorious vanara sena could be heard in Ashoka vanam. Then why did Lakshmana look like someone completely defeated?

Sri Ramachandra wants you to undergo a chastity test, Sister-in-law.”

Sita must endure more trial and humiliation, as it happens. Much later, after she gives birth to her twins, Sita is distraught that her consort expects the paternity of their twin children to be declared in court. Once again, Sita is livid.

Isn’t the paternity obvious when the two princes, both of whom are a spitting image of their father, are standing in front of him in flesh and blood? Isn’t that a testament to her honesty? Viewed from the stance of a woman who has been a faithful, long-suffering wife, Rama’s expectations seem egregious. And who is he to say that the world needs to be given any proof or even needs to told anything at all?

In an extraordinary meeting with Renuka, another woman whose son, Parasurama, was ready to kill her at his father’s bidding, Sita begins to understand that not even one’s own child is above questioning a woman’s actions. In a final meeting with Urmila, the wife of Lakshmana—who was never consulted before Lakshmana accompanied Rama on a 14-year exile into the forest—Sita learns the power of detachment and stoicism. As she meets and speaks to each of these legendary women, their experiences and their decisions become beacons for her own action.

In a final brilliant stroke, the author transports us into the court of Rama. We see him, the ideal man who can do no wrong, torqued by remorse. He is in deep distress, for not only must always do right by his land, he must also honor the woman who gave him her hand. He understands that the woman he has always loved has made her decision. It’s the one battle he knows he has lost.

A wound caused by the throne to the love of Sita and Rama.

He could forsake Sita; Sita belonged to him.

He could not relinquish the throne; it belonged to Raghu Vamsa.

The dynasty. The tradition in which political power passes on to the firstborn. The dharma of preserving that tradition was on his head. The burden of protecting Arya Dharma finally robbed him of all the happiness in his life.

There was no liberation for him.

Rama wailed disconsolately.

What becomes clearer as we turn the pages of Volga’s novella is that our idea of Rama has been handed down to us through the centuries by storytellers who wished to indoctrinate us with their own version of the story. The truth probably was always a lot more nuanced. We understand that even as Rama is held aloft by the universe as the divine emperor and an ideal man, his own priorities likely shifted as he assumed his duties. Was he a role model? Did Rama’s responsibilities and his own sense of self prevent him from being the best husband he could be? As far as the readers are concerned, however, by the end of THE LIBERATION OF SITA, we know exactly what Sita must do.