Sita's Ramayana - Samhita Arni and artist Moyna Chitrakar

The Ramayana is a complex text, an important Hindu narrative which is part of the rich culture. We sing from it, we make ballet dances, we act and tell stories from it.

The graphic arts are part of the Indian art tradition as well. Sita's Ramayana, according to the blurb on Tara Books, "shifts the point of view of the Ramayana – the saga of a heroic war – to bring a woman’s perspective to this timeless epic.

Narrated by the heroine Sita, it is a powerful meditation on the fate of women, as they become pawns in the wars between men and kingdoms. But Sita is not just a patient victim of events – she endures her fate with fortitude, until the moment she decides to challenge it.

The book unites two women from very different backgrounds: young urban writer Samhita Arni collaborates with Patua scroll artist Moyna Chitrakar to create this unusual graphic novel."

The Hindu traditions of the feminine are complex - the divine energy Shakti is feminine , and in some of the religious teachings, the Mother Goddess is so powerful that men want to become her.

But.. Sita, women are told.. be like Sita and accept your fate quietly. But the Ramayana has been told and retold, it lives in different parts of India and the world.  In parts of southern India, Ravana is the hero. We hear of the Chandrabati Bengali Ramayana in which the story is told through another woman's eyes.

So Sita's Ramayana, starts in the middle, rather than the beginning. The story has the known characters, but Sita is there, listening to what is going on. Many versions of the Ramayana do not have the Lav-Kush Kanda, that last part which one commentatator, said was added by 'women who had been hurt' . This is the part in which Sita returns to her mother after her second exile.

When I read this, I remember the teenage girl at a wedding house joking with her aunties and grandmothers.. that she will have more than one husband because 'if Raja Dasrath had four wife, whuh mek me cyan get four husband'.


There are many versions of the Ramayana - and the Ramayana is used to explain many Hindu philosophical points.  One of the important points is the role of every character in playing out the script - to destroy what was seen as indestructible. Sita in her Ramayana challenges ideas of 'enemies' and also stands up for herself. She is the one who summons the fire to show her purity, and then decides to go back to Mother Earth in the end.

The story is good, but those who believe that it is a mockery to read anything other than the Valmikki Ramcharitmanas, would probably find this as outrageous as Sita Sings the Blues. However, my readings of the Ramayana do not always have Lord Rama as 'perfect'. My readings of Hindu traditions also show that every person is important, and each character in a story is important to that story. It is therefore possible to have those characters give their own versions and for us to imagine what the stories-  not only the old stories, but even the current ones - would be like when different persons tell their own versions.