Sita: An Illustrated Retelling of the Ramayana Read online

  Boons and curses are narrative tools to explain karma: all actions have consequences.

  According to the Valmiki Ramayana, twelve years pass between Ram’s marriage and the decision to coronate Ram. In later retellings, the decision is almost immediate.

  Dashratha struggles to change his fate. First he wants to father a child, even if it means marrying three times and getting a priest to intervene. Then he wants a quick coronation before anything happens to his sons. But in doing so, he sparks off events that hasten the inevitable.

  The image of a son carrying his old parents to a pilgrimage is at once a reflection of nobility as well as burden. Children who care for their old parents are often called Shravana.

  The kavadi or the bamboo staff slung over the shoulder, weighted on either side by feathers and auspicious symbols like pots, is a symbol of household responsibilities that young men carry as part of many temple rituals associated with Shiva. In the south, devotees of Shiva’s son Murugan carry this. In the north, devotees of Shiva carry water from the Ganga on kavadis to their local temples, making sure the kavadi never touches the ground along the way.

  In the Unnao district of Uttar Pradesh there is a place called Sarvan associated with the death of Shravana. There is a stone image there whose navel can never be filled with water, indicating the eternally unquenched thirst of the dutiful son killed by Dashratha.

  The Venom of Manthara

  Word spread rapidly from the king’s courtyard to the city and then across the land. At dawn the following day, a new king would be crowned while the old king would retire; thus continuity and stability would be assured for the city of Ayodhya and the land of Kosala.

  This led to utsav, a spontaneous celebration. The farmers returned home early from the fields, herdsmen from the pastures and fisherfolk from the waters to join in the celebrations. The houses were cleaned and decorated with flowers. The streets were swept clean and watered to prevent the dust from rising. Lamps were lit. Flags were prepared, to be raised at dawn the next day. Special food was cooked – nothing sour, only sweet, all rich in butter and ghee. The men and women took out their finery to greet the king when he would ride out on the royal chariot under the ivory parasol after the coronation ceremony. A feast was organized in the city square. Wrestlers, entertainers and musicians rushed to the city to take part in the festivites.

  The news thrilled everyone in the queen’s courtyard. Kaushalya said, ‘But surely this can wait till Bharata and Shatrughna return?’

  ‘Indeed,’ said Manthara, ‘I wonder why this impatience. Or was this all planned?’ Her mind wandered. As it wandered further and further, her thoughts transformed from a gentle breeze to a storm. Suddenly she saw patterns that no one else saw. And these patterns frightened her. She ran to Kaikeyi and found her busy selecting her favourite jewels.

  Manthara shut the doors and windows, sat in front of Kaikeyi and began to beat her chest, staring at the floor. Again and again, repeatedly, with increasing frequency, till Kaikeyi took notice. ‘What is it, Mother?’

  ‘You are beautiful, brave and intelligent and destined to be the mother of a king. You should have been the first wife of a great king. But no, your father gave you to this wretch who already had a wife. He promised your father that your son would be his heir. Then he blamed you for not giving him a son. Calls himself king but does not take responsibility for his own sterility. Even that servant’s daughter’s womb could not germinate his weak seed. So he calls a priest and conducts a yagna and invokes the gods and gets a potion to become a father. And what a horrible father, preferring his first wife’s son to the others! Holding him back in the palace and letting your son go to the forest with that wretched Vishwamitra. And then giving your son an inferior wife, sister of the eldest bride, not a queen in her own right. And now, when your son is away, prepares to crown his dear Ram king.

  That will make Kaushalya the queen mother and where will that leave you? Your son will be servant of the king and you, my beautiful, brave, intelligent, fertile Kaikeyi, will be Kaushalya’s maid. And I will be maid to a maid. With a heavy heart I accepted being maid to the second queen in the hope that one day you would be queen mother. But now, that hope is dashed. All because your charms did not work with the king. Kaushalya’s did.’

  Kaikeyi, who had been happy until that moment, and had never seen things the way Manthara did, suddenly felt fear creeping into her heart. Did she matter to the king? Did her son matter? No more would she be the favoured queen; she would be servant to the queen mother. And Bharata? Would he be Ram’s servant? Then she thought: but Ram is the eldest son and a good son, a brave, strong and wise man. Surely Ayodhya deserves him. What is wrong in serving a worthy king and his noble mother?

  ‘Sacrifice is good,’ continued Manthara tauntingly. ‘The poor always sacrifice for the rich, the weak for the strong, the servant for the master. Let us accept our place, at the feet of Kaushalya. Since I raised you, not your royal mother, I guess you are bound to display servant qualities just like me.’

  Like a snake whose tail had been struck, Kaikeyi raised her hood. ‘Never. I am no one’s servant. I will always be queen. I will go to my husband and tell him to stop. He will listen to me. He always does.’

  ‘Yes, he does. But not now, not when Vasishtha and Kaushalya sit beside him. Get him here, alone. And don’t ask him. Demand that he keep his word.’

  ‘Word?’

  Manthara reminded Kaikeyi of the two boons Dashratha had granted her long ago, in the battlefield when she saved his life, boons that she had yet to claim. ‘Oh yes,’ said Kaikeyi, with a wily smile.

  From desire come all problems. And all desires come from fear. Manthara fears for her own well-being, and so does Kaikeyi. Neither trusts Dashratha. Each one imagines the consequences of Ram’s coronation and is not happy with the picture that emerges.

  In ancient times, there were special chambers known as kop-bhavan or anger rooms where queens went to declare their rage. Kings were expected to then appease them and draw them out of their kop-bhavan. This is where Kaikeyi goes; she removes her finery and hurls herself on the floor to dramatically display her sorrow.

  Manthara is a common literary device whereby an aspect of the protagonist’s personality is turned into a character in a story. Manthara embodies and voices Kaikeyi’s deepest fears.

  In many retellings, both Manthara and Kaikeyi are compelled to do what they did in order to ensure that Ram goes into the forest and kills the demons there. In the Adhyatma Ramayana, for example, the goddess of knowledge Saraswati influences the two women. Such narratives attempt to humanize the villains, make them critical pawns in a larger narrative.

  The narrative reveals the anxieties of the palace. In every organization there are hierarchies which determine power. To rise, some use talent, others use loyalty and still others use connections. That the eldest should inherit the throne is a human construction. In nature, the strongest leads the pack. Stories that show Ram as not just elder but also wiser and stronger establish his claim to the throne.

  Bhavabhuti’s Mahavira-charita describes how Ravana’s uncle and minister Malyavan plots against Ram. First he provokes Parashurama to fight Ram. Then he gets Surpanakha to possess Manthara’s body and influence Kaikeyi, thus forcing Ram to enter the forest where he would be overpowered by Ravana’s ally, the monkey-king Vali, and be forced to marry Surpanakha while Ravana would claim Sita. Murari’s Sanskrit play Anargha-Raghava has a similar take.

  Two Boons for Kaikeyi

  When a king has several wives, he is supposed to divide his time equally between them. Dashratha, however, preferred spending most nights with Kaikeyi, something that always created tension in the inner courtyards. But Kaushalya was too gracious to protest and Sumitra too mild.

  That night, like most nights, the king came to Kaikeyi’s courtyard. He expected to be greeted with the fragrance of perfumes and the aroma of Manthara’s cooking, especially tonight, when the whole city was fragrant and every