India and my Sita fixation

I'm reading "In Search of Sita," a poorly-titled but interesting set of essays about the main character of the Ramayana. (I was going to call her Valmiki's femme fatale, but that would really just be wishful thinking on my part)

Sita is one of those divisive characters. She went through a political rebirth around the time of Indian independence. Mahatma Gandhi thought she was the ideal woman, extreme Hindu hard-liners held her up as the silent suffering ideal.

Everyone wants to project Sita in their own image. For a long time I wanted to rewrite the Ramayana from her perspective (there are about 1000 versions of this ancient story and in almost all of them Sita is entirely incidental).

I always liked Sita, if only because in her devotion to Rama she personified the opposite of the Erica Jong-type Western feminist who was only in it for the thrills.

These days, though, I find Sita's story to be a cautionary tale. Sita spent her life silently following her husband around as he rooted out his destiny in various corners. She didn't say anything when he ignored, doubted and banished her, or when he repeatedly disregarded her feelings. For a long time I thought this was ok, because Sita chose to follow him, and after all, who can argue with someone else's choices?

But it's somewhat sad, really, that for all her "silent suffering," Sita never won her husband's respect. I doubt Valmiki meant to suggest this (or perhaps he did, the crafty old dude) but basically the entire Ramayana, when viewed from this perspective, is a great big admonition to women to speak up if they want something.

(These days, I find my personal allegience going more to Draupadi, the polyandrous heroine of the Mahabharata, although I couldn't tell you why)

I'm not the only one to see Sita as a tragic character. In the book's intro, editor Namita Gokhale writes "Janaki [Sita] was a strong young woman who could lift the Hara, Shiva's bow, with one arm. So why do I picture her weeping?"

This question, really, lies at the heart of Sita's identity. It's why I can't discard her completely, but also why I, like so many modern women, feel like I have to rescue or "reclaim" Sita from the unfortunate patriarchal circumstances of myth. One of the essay authors writes "It was Sita's dharma that gave Rama his essential aura and moral strength," suggesting that the righteous king couldn't exist without his quiet wife.

One author attempts to redeem Sita's strength by pointing out that the Rig Veda contains a reference to Sita, a powerful earth goddess, without whom the fields couldn't be fertile.

Filmmaker Deepa Mehta tried to give Sita a voice in her movie Fire, about a lesbian love affair between two sisters-in-law. Mehta named one of the women Sita. The name caused such a controversy that she had to change it for the film's Hindi release. Nina Paley set Sita's story to jazz music in "Sita Sings the Blues," suggesting that Sita was just another woman brought low by her love for an inconsiderate man.

Why is Sita so fascinating? We're all trying, in our own ways, to justify her. Why is it that a woman who, according to legend, could transform at will into the fearful goddess Kali, allowed herself to be kidnapped without putting up a fight? Why did she agree to enter the fire when her husband of many years questioned her character? Why did she let the fire speak in her defense instead of doing it herself? More importantly, why didn't she shrivel Ravana with a single glare from her divine eyes?

These questions didn't bother the writers of the early stories, nor did they bother the Hindutva activists of the 1950s. But they definitely pester me today. Reading these essays it becomes clear that there will always be more questions about Sita than answers. Whether we like it or not, the idea of Sita (the patient wife, the righteous queen, the devoted mother, the virtuous goddess, etc) is one that we just can't ignore.