The Liberation of Sita Read online

  VOLGA

  Translated from the Telugu by

  T. VIJAY KUMAR

  C. VIJAYASREE

  NEW YORK • LONDON • TORONTO • SYDNEY • NEW DELHI

  Dedicated to the memory of

  Dr C. Vijayasree

  (1953–2012)

  Contents

  The Reunion

  Music of the Earth

  The Sand Pot

  The Liberated

  The Shackled

  P.S. Section

  Notes

  About the Book

  About the Authors

  Copyright

  The Reunion

  Sunset time. The forest, with crimson brightness on one side and engulfing darkness on the other, was like a red furnace emitting black smoke. Birds flying in rows were returning to their nests, filling the forest with their clamour. Herds of deer were getting ready for a moonlight excursion, shedding their daytime lethargy. The sage’s ashram in that thick forest looked beautiful—and tranquil—like the creation of an accomplished painter.

  In the ashram the evening rituals had begun. Sacrificial fires were glowing. Mantras were being chanted in solemn tones. The women of the hermitage, having watered the plants, were relaxing. Some of them were weaving garlands for the puja. Children, having returned from their forest wanderings, nestled in the embrace of their mothers, who had been eagerly waiting for them. Some mothers were hurrying their children along for the evening ablutions. In one small cottage, a mother was waiting for her children who had not yet come back from the forest. From the look in her eyes, it was clear that she lived only for the children. There was anxiety in those kind, fear-filled eyes.

  Her name was Sita.

  She was waiting for her two sons.

  They would normally return by this time every day, bringing some wild flowers with them. They would plead with their mother to use these nameless flowers for worship, and Sita would refuse. So they would give the flowers some strange names. When their mother laughed at their ingenuity, they would sulk. Sita would then appease them by using the flowers for the puja. As darkness thickened, the two boys would sing in full-throated ease and the forest listened to them with rapture.

  Lava and Kusa had not yet returned. Sita did not apprehend any danger; the boys knew the forest like the back of their hands. They were born there; they had grown up there; they were the sons of the forest. But what was the reason for the delay? Ever since their visit to Ayodhya, Sita’s heart was filled with an anxiety that she never had felt before. A strange disturbance plagued her mind—fear not of the forest, but of the city. As the sky darkened, Sita’s eyes began to glow like lamps.

  Just then the two boys walked into that light. Sita heaved a sigh of relief and asked them why they were late. Lava said, ‘Look, Mother,’ and emptied the flowers he had brought in his angavastram into a plate.

  Flowers—red, white, yellow—filled the plate with wild smiles. Such flowers had never been seen before. The fragrance too was hitherto unknown. Kusa and Lava looked at their mother, proud of their find.

  ‘Where did you get these from? So pretty!’ said Sita, touching the petals tenderly.

  ‘Mother, we discovered a new garden today. We have never seen such a garden before. Even the divine garden Valmiki taata told us about is no match for it,’ Kusa said.

  Lava nodded, endorsing his brother’s words.

  ‘Whose garden is that, Kusa?’ Sita asked.

  ‘Mother, the garden is so beautiful but its owner is so ugly. She came out when we were plucking the flowers. We got scared. Anna gathered courage somehow and told her, “We are from the ashram. We are collecting flowers for worship.” Then we hurried out.’ His face contorted with disgust.

  ‘Her form was so hideous! She was so ugly,’ Lava recalled with a shudder.

  ‘That’s wrong, son. Never loathe people for their looks. She has grown a very nice garden even though she is ugly, hasn’t she?’ said Sita.

  ‘The rest of her is all right, Mother. But she didn’t have a nose or ears. Instead, there were big holes in her face, as if someone had carved them out.’

  Sita flinched as if someone had whipped her. ‘No ears or nose?’

  ‘Maybe she had them before. It looked like someone had chopped them off. Isn’t that so, brother?’

  Sita was sure now. It must be Surpanakha! Yes, it is definitely Surpanakha.

  Eighteen years ago … Surpanakha came seeking Rama’s love. What a pretty woman! The wicked prank played by Rama and Lakshmana left her horribly disfigured. Poor thing! Is Surpanakha living in this forest now? So much time has passed since then!

  Since Rama insulted Surpanakha, Ravana wanted to take revenge on Rama by abducting me.

  Do women exist only to be used by men to settle their scores? Rama and Lakshmana would not have done this to Surpanakha if they did not know that she was Ravana’s sister. Rama’s objective was to provoke Ravana; his mission, to find a cause to start a quarrel with Ravana, was accomplished through Surpanakha.

  It was all politics.

  Poor Surpanakha came longing for love. Who will love that ugly woman now that she has lost her ears and nose?

  Has she spent all her life in lovelessness?

  Has she showered all her love on that garden?

  Has she created the garden as an expression of her passion for beauty?

  Are these flowers a manifestation of the tenderness of her heart?

  Poor Surpanakha!

  Lava and Kusa were surprised to see the tears in their mother’s eyes.

  ‘What is this, Mother? Why are you getting so distressed hearing about some stranger’s ugliness?’

  Sita wiped her tears and said with a smile, ‘Will you take me to that garden tomorrow?’

  Lava and Kusa looked at each other in disbelief.

  ‘Really, I would like to go with you. Will you take me there? Do you remember the way?’

  The brothers’ joy soared to the skies at Sita’s words.

  They were filled with excitement at the thought of their mother accompanying them on an excursion into the forest. They had always wanted to show her all the places in the forest that they were familiar with. But Sita never went out with them. On the few occasions she did go outdoors, it was always with the other women of the hermitage. Walking through the impenetrable jungle holding their mother’s hands, giving her courage so she would not get scared, showing her all the marvels of the place—the very thought filled the boys with irrepressible joy.

  They were impatient for dawn to break.

  The night passed pensively for Sita, too. Memories of the past confronted her, however hard she tried to push them aside.

  Surpanakha’s coming—how beautifully she had walked in. White jasmines in her hair. Garlands of yellow ganneru around her neck. Bracelets of nilambara on her wrists. She was like a walking creeper in bloom.

  She looked curiously at my jewellery as if wondering why I burdened myself with all that metal, which had neither fragrance nor grace. She only looked at me, didn’t say a word. She went up straight to Rama. I kept doing my work, while paying attention to their conversation. After a while, there was bloodshed in the ashram.

  A woman’s heart-rending cry!

  How much must she have cursed us for that act!

  That curse has still not left us it seems.

  No man will ever love her.

  The man who loved me abandoned me.

  Have the two stories become one and the same, finally?

  What will Surpanakha say when she sees me?

  She may not speak to me out of anger—yet I must see her. I must see Surpanakha.

  The next morning, Lava and Kusa set out with Sita after she had completed her chores.

&nb
sp; ‘Mother, I’ll show you my Raja today,’ said Lava.

  An elephant in musth, roaming freely in the forest, had been tamed by Lava. The two brothers wandered around the forest riding the elephant.

  ‘Mother, won’t you sit on the elephant?’ asked Lava, fondly.

  ‘No, son, I prefer walking,’ said Sita, remembering the days when she would go in a procession, sitting atop the royal elephant.

  The brothers thought Sita was afraid of riding the elephant.

  ‘Poor Mother! How can she climb onto the elephant? She is scared,’ Kusa chided Lava.

  The two brothers led their mother towards the garden, introducing all the creatures they had befriended along the way.

  Absorbed in her children’s chatter, Sita did not feel the strain of the journey at all.

  ‘Mother, this is the garden.’

  Sita stood dumbfounded. The garden looked like the very smile of nature. Even Ashoka Vanam would pale in comparison.

  You are blessed, Surpanakha! she thought.

  ‘Come, Mother, let’s go in,’ said the children.

  ‘I’ll go in by myself. You go around the forest and come back here in the evening. We’ll go back to the ashram together,’ Sita told them.

  She saw a woman at some distance. Though her face was turned away, Sita could tell it was Surpanakha.

  She went closer and called out gently, ‘Surpanakha!’

  Surpanakha turned around. She did not recognize Sita.

  ‘Who are you, amma? Have you lost your way? How do you know my name?’ she asked.

  ‘I have not lost my way, Surpanakha. I have come looking for the right path. I’m Sita.’

  Surpanakha was stunned.

  Sita? Is she Sita? How much she has changed!

  Surpanakha only knew the Sita covered in jewellery. Moreover, she had never taken a close look at her.

  Is this Sita, the consort of Chakravarthi Sri Ramachandra, who slayed Ravana and extended the Aryan Empire across the entire south?

  Surpanakha could not believe it.

  Why this coarse sari? Why these garlands for jewellery? Why this sun-singed golden complexion?

  Is she Sita? Sri Rama’s wife, Sita?

  ‘Sita—you mean, Sri Ramachandra’s …’

  Stopping Surpanakha before she could complete the question, Sita said with quiet dignity, ‘I am Sita. I am Janaka’s daughter, Janaki. I am the daughter of Mother Earth.’

  ‘What about Sri Rama?’ Surpanakha was confused.

  ‘Sri Rama has abandoned me. I’m now living in Valmiki’s ashram.’

  Surpanakha had no words to speak. Sri Rama abandoned Sita! Surpanakha knew about the love between Sita and Rama better than anyone else. And the price she had paid for it, too, was not small.

  Was anguish inevitable for women who love Sri Rama?

  On Sita’s face, Surpanakha could only see peace and dignity; there was no trace of distress.

  Sita has matured a lot, thought Surpanakha.

  ‘Yesterday, my children saw your garden. They saw you too. Today, they brought me here. Your garden is so beautiful and peaceful,’ said Sita with a smile.

  ‘Were those your boys? How charming they were!’ Surpanakha said.

  A fleeting expression of pride crossed Sita’s face. It did not miss Surpanakha’s attention.

  ‘All the creepers, plants and trees in this garden are my children,’ Surpanakha said.

  ‘Yes, that’s why they’re so beautiful!’ agreed Sita.

  Pride stood firm in Surpanakha’s eyes.

  ‘Tell me, Surpanakha, how has your life been?’

  ‘As beautiful and joyous as this garden.’

  ‘I am happy to hear that, Surpanakha. I was worried about you after the humiliation you suffered. I knew how you hankered after beauty; I was worried that, unable to accept your own mutilation, you might have resorted to something extreme. I was troubled by such thoughts whenever I remembered you.’

  Surpanakha was moved by the kindness and affection in Sita’s eyes.

  A feeling of friendship sprouted in their hearts and thrilled them.

  ‘You’re a brave woman,’ Sita said.

  Sita’s sincere words of appreciation overwhelmed Surpanakha. She felt a strong desire to narrate the course of her life to Sita.

  ‘Don’t look at how I am today and imagine that all this happened easily, Sita. I have become tough by facing upto the challenges life threw at me. I have been able to find happiness in trying to understand the very meaning of beauty.

  ‘My life was unbearable in the initial days after the mutilation.

  ‘I loathed my own appearance. I hated myself. There were also days when I even wanted to kill myself.

  ‘I want beauty. I want love. I can’t live without them. But I, who was such a worshipper of beauty, was turned into an ugly figure.

  ‘Looking at my ugliness, men—all the handsome men that I desired—used to abhor me.

  ‘Those days were hellish. I saw no point in living. My heart burned with pain and anger every single day. How much I cursed Sri Rama, his brother Lakshmana and you! I spewed venom at all of you. There was not a trace of love left in me; hate had gripped my heart. I, who loved beauty, began hating everything that was beautiful. My love of beauty turned into jealousy of all those who were beautiful.

  ‘I became a walking volcano. A stormy sea of grief.’

  Their hearts grew heavy with the recollection of Surpanakha’s painful memories.

  ‘How did you come out of such sorrow, Surpanakha?’

  ‘It was hard. It was hard finding the real meaning of beauty. I was so proud of my beauty. You don’t know how much I adored my nose. The sharp noses of you, Aryans, looked strange to me. There’s beauty in strangeness, too, of course. My nose was neither sharp nor flat. It was, I thought, exactly how Eshwar must have conceived the perfect nose in the beginning of Creation. I was so proud of my nose! I used to adorn it with yellow and white wild flowers which shone like stars on either side. When my lovers tenderly kissed the tip of my nose, it used to arouse me.

  ‘No one except I will understand what it meant to lose such a nose. I endured all that misery. I endured the burden of all those perverted thoughts that arose out of my disfigurement. Sometimes I felt like disfiguring everyone, everything.

  ‘To come out of that spitefulness, to love beauty once again, to understand the essence of form and formlessness—I had to wage a huge battle against myself. My only collaborator in that battle was this infinite nature.

  ‘I struggled a lot to grasp that there is no difference between beauty and ugliness in nature. I observed many living creatures and understood that movement and stillness are one and the same. I discovered the secrets of colours. I had no guru in this matter. I pursued it on my own. I searched every particle in nature, and in the course of that search, my own vision has changed. Everything began to look beautiful to my eyes. I, who hated everything including myself, began to love everything including myself.

  ‘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.

  ‘Gradually I learned to love my hands. I learned how to create, work and serve with those hands. It took more than ten years for all this to happen. After ten years of rigorous practice and hard work bore fruit, I began growing this garden.’

  Surpanakha unravelled before Sita the beauty and truth of her life’s journey.

  ‘How beautiful you are, Surpanakha! How does it matter whether any man appreciates your beauty or not,’ Sita’s voice choked.

  Surpanakha’s trial was no less than the trial by fire that I had to go through—Sita thought and it brought tears to her eyes.

  But Surpanakha laughed, beautifully, joyously.

  ‘Why? Don’t men have eyes? Don’t they have a heart? I’m not talking about men who only
know how to disfigure and to hate the disfigured.’

  ‘You mean …’ Sita did not complete the sentence but its meaning was clear.

  ‘Your guess is correct, Sita. I found the companionship of a man. There is a man who could own for a while the beauty that flows into nature through my hands and could surrender himself to me.’ So saying Surpanakha called out, ‘Sudhira!’

  A strong, well-built man, who perfectly fit the description of his name, appeared.

  ‘This is Sita.’

  Sudhira greeted Sita respectfully, with folded hands.

  ‘I just called you to introduce you to Sita.’

  At this, Sudhira turned back and left. In that moment’s interaction, Sita could see that there was between them a relationship which she had not seen before between any man and woman.

  ‘You’ve made your life a success, haven’t you?’ Sita asked.

  ‘I’ve realized that the meaning of success for a woman does not lie in her relationship with a man. Only after that realization, did I find this man’s companionship.’

  Sita intently listened to Surpanakha’s words. There was a rare wisdom and dignity in her words. One felt like listening to her again and again.

  ‘Sita—what about you?’

  ‘I find fulfillment in bringing up my sons.’

  ‘Is that the goal of your life?’

  ‘Yes. I’m Rama’s wife. As the queen, I couldn’t discharge my duties. I must at least give to Ramarajya its heirs.’

  ‘You never lived in that kingdom, yet see how your life is entangled in it, Sita!’

  ‘Yes, being a king’s wife, it is inevitable, isn’t it?’ Sita smiled.

  ‘I don’t know why, but I was always afraid of kingdoms. Despite my brother’s persuasion, I never lived in the city of Lanka. The joy you get from wandering in a forest, you don’t get anywhere else.’

  ‘I too like the forest life. When Rama abandoned me, this forest softened my suffering.’

  Time simply flew as they conversed.

  ‘My children do not know that they are Sri Rama’s sons. I have not told them. They’ll know when the time comes.’

  ‘Once they get to know, you think they’ll live even for a minute more in the forest?’ Surpanakha looked pityingly at Sita.