As one of the defining figures of Indian womanhood, Sita continues to exert a powerful influence on the collective Indian psyche. Canonical texts deify Sita while regional variations humanize her. Folk songs and ballads connect her timeless predicament to the daily lives of rural women. Modern-day women continue to see themselves reflected in films, serials and soap operas based on Sita’s narrative.
While there is no single version of Sita’s story, different accounts coexist in myth, literature and folklore. A unique aspect of the Ramayana is that various versions of the same epic abound not only in different parts of
The proliferation of the image of Sita is also a marker of the many versions of the Ramayana, the many ways a single story can be told in India, and that there exists no one simplified version. There are probably more versions of Sita in communal memory in the form of folk songs, tales and local mythologies than there are versions of the Ramayana. This underlines the enduring appeal of the figure of Sita among the people—she is embraced as daughter, bride, queen, rebel and mother.
In Search of Sita is a nuanced effort to explode the myth of the uni-dimensional Sita. She is not just the daughter of Mother Earth, or an incarnation of Goddess Lakshmi, but also intensely human—capable of rage and anger, and possessed of a great ability to love and nurture. It is this complex and multifaceted Sita that the book explores, attempting to break down the media-propagated constructs of the subservient Sita popularized through comic-books and TV-serials.
Divided into sections that accommodate essays, commentaries, interviews and creative interpretations by writers, In Search of Sita offers fresh perspectives on this enigmatic figure and her indelible impact on our everyday lives.
No comments:
Post a Comment