Impressive amounts of literature, poetry, cinema and academic research have been devoted to studying the Ramayana over the decades. Some of this attention has been deflected from the epic’s hero Rama, the ideal son, husband, brother and ruler, to his wife Sita. Is she merely the ideal wife, or is she a proto-feminist rebel? A new show on the Star Plus channel claims to shed new light on Sita’s perspective of the events of the Ramayana. Indian television is awash with tradition-bound and cartoonish versions of the epics, but Siya Ke Ram claims to be different, with an emphasis on the love story between Rama and Sita.
Aniruddh Pathak, who is responsible for this show, has also worked on Devo Ke Dev Mahadev, the popular series based on the god Shiva's life. The producers have roped in mythologists such as Anand Neelakantan and Devdutt Pattanaik to contribute to the story treatment.
The first episode introduces us to the central characters. Rains accompany the birth of Sita and vanquish drought in King Janak’s kingdom. Meanwhile, the young Ram and his brothers study under Guru Vashisht.
Feminist scholars, artists and filmmakers have been considering Sita’s perspective long before the good folks at Star Plus put their minds to it. The Ramayana changes form and focus as it travels beyond India to south-east Asian countries. In Indonesia, versions of the epic are fused with references to local deities and practices. Garin Nugroho’s acclaimed musical Opera Jawa (2007) uses traditional Indonesian performance practices,such as wayang (puppet theatre) and gamelan (percussion-based music). Nugroho gives us a version of the Ramayana that is both epic as well as local. Opera Jawa focuses on the abduction of Sita. A poor potter, Setio (Rama) has a beautiful wife, Siti (Sita), with whom the wealthy butcher Ludiro (Ravana) is besotted. Ludiro seduces and abducts Siti, but Setio gathers an army of les misérables to bring her back. The contemporary tale questions Setio’s possessiveness towards Siti and her own sexual desires, and her trial by fire is interpreted as a murder.
The question of what Sita actually wants also drives American cartoonist and filmmaker Nina Paley’s acclaimed animated film Sita Sings The Blues. Paley delivers a personal interpretation of Valmiki’s Ramayana, and places the ancient myth in the context of her own failing marriage. The film puts together multiple narratives and visual styles to create a musical with songs by blues singer Annette Hanshaw. Three Indonesian shadow-puppets serve as narrators, while Sita is portrayed as a lovelorn type who pays heavily for her devotion to Rama.
The rise of Hindu fundamentalist thought has posed challenges to alternative readings of the Ramayana, so full marks to Mani Ratnam, who tried to tweak the template with his dual-language Raavanan/Raavan in 2010. Made in Tamil and Hindi versions with a shared cast, the movie places the Ramayana in a contemporary context and explores the abduction of Sita from Ravaan’s point of view. Raavan, played by Vikram in Tamil and Abhishek Bachchan in Hindi, is portrayed as a Robin Hood-like figure who kidnaps Aishwarya Rai Bachchan’s character to avenge his sister’s custodial rape and subsequent suicide. Sita is depicted as blameless, while Ram, played by Vikram in Hindi and Prithviraj in Tamil, is the bad cop to whom Ravaan’s death is more important than his wife’s life.
