SITA

I

“What are you doing?” Sita was both amused and bewildered at her brother-in-law’s serious expression.

“I am drawing a line.” He replied, still serious. “DON’T CROSS IT.”

Sita stopped, one foot in mid-air and a frown on her forehead. Laxmana had never raised his voice in her presence before let alone at her. She stood back and balanced herself. “And, pray, why not?”

“I’m sorry.” He stood up, satisfied. The line stretched across the little garden in front of their hut. “Please don’t cross it.

This time his voice was soft, almost pleading. Her anger softened. “I asked you why.”

“It will protect you.”

“From what?”

“Demons. Animals. Anything.”

“A line will protect me from demons and animals?”

“It is not just another line. I have put all my powers into it. It will protect you from anything I can fight. But don’t cross it.”

Sita was quiet. Quietly, she relived an old conflict. Was she grateful for this stifling protection? What right did anyone have to draw boundaries around her? Was she a prisoner? Then she looked at Laxmana’s sorry expression and nodded. “Don’t worry, Laxmana. I won’t cross it.” Any issues were to be raised with her husband.

“Don’t stay on and hunt! Just bring him back.” She called out to Laxmana’s receding back. She hated Ram’s going out alone in this wilderness. Not that there were any dangers, really. No man-eating beasts. And Sita religiously fed all animals who came her way. They recognised her kindness and were grateful for it. They wouldn’t hurt her husband. And no humans visited the jungle.

“Alms, mother!” The voice shocked her. A beggar was standing at her door. She stared at him.

“Alms, mother!”

Who are you? You are not a beggar.”

Ravana was doubly impressed. For the last four minutes, he had been speechless, dazzled by her beauty. Now her intelligence took his breath out. “Who am I?” he asked in a daze.

She looked perplexed. Then she read the desire in his eyes and fear leapt inside her. “Go away.” She hurried back to her hut.

“NO!” he ran after her and then he screamed as his foot touched fire. He stepped back and Sita froze. Then she laughed. Her breath came back.

“Don’t cross that line. That line is Laxmana and he will kill you.”

“Oh!” Ravana smiled. “And you live inside that line. I see.”

“Of course not. It is there to protect me.” This man was infuriating.

“I am Ravana, King of Lanka.” Ravana settled down comfortably just outside the Laxmana Rekha. “I have come here to capture you.”

“Capture means ‘to fight and win’. You came to trick me.”

Again Ravana did a double-take. “It is as you say. I came to kidnap you.”

“Coward!”

“No more coward than your famed Laxmana who cut off a woman’s nose because she loved him and told him so.” Ravana’s voice shook. With anger. Or grief.

Sita’s face was flushed. She had been very angry with Laxmana. And, inexplicably, Rama had taken his brother’s side. “I’m sorry.” She almost whispered it.

When she looked up, Ravana was staring at her with untamed desire. “ I love you,” he said.
“The cheek of it!” she screamed and jumped to her feet. “You are a rakshasa! How dare you propose to a Kshatriya’s wife!”

“A woman has no religion, my dear. And no caste. She belongs to he who captures her.”

“Don’t challenge me, Ravana. I am a Kshatriya.” The calmness with which she said this caught his attention.

“Prove it.”

“What?”

“Fight me. I promise you I will not use my strength as a man against you. Beat me with skill and I am your slave for life.”

Sita’s heart was pounding. Her mind was reeling. For 13 years, she had learnt to fence, she had learnt archery and she had learnt the technique of war. Janaka had no son. And he did not miss one. He used to call her “my heir.” But Rama had refused Janaka’s kingdom. Even after he was exiled from Ayodhyaya. Sita had been torn between her father’s dreams and her husband’s pride. But, then, a woman’s place is by her husband’s side.

Now, 14 years since she last touched a sword, she was being invited to battle. “I will fight.”
She calmed her nerves and her mind cleared. She went to the hut and picked up the sword Janaka had given Rama and stepped out. Slowly, her eyes all the while on Ravana, she crossed the Laxmana Rekha.

Ravana had expected skill, even strength but he had not expected such calmness and quickness from a woman. He was bleeding from his right arm and the base of his neck had a small cut. A scratch, but it could have meant death. Her beauty distracted him, he was losing. But he remembered the stakes…

Carefully, he caught her pallu in his sword and yanked it. A woman is so easily beaten. Why was he scared? She screamed and the sword dropped from her hands. Suddenly powerless, she ran to the hut. She ran back into the haven of Lakshmana’s line and Ravana followed. Another step and she would be safe!

Inside the Laxmana Rekha, she breathed easier. Beaten and humiliated, but safe. She turned. Only to see Ravana’s laughing face close to hers. She opened her mouth but she couldn’t hear herself.

“It’s an unfair world, my dear,” he was saying. “Once a woman crosses her maryada, she can’t go back into it.”

II

“Don’t worry.” Laxmana whispered into her ear. “I asked Bade Bhaiya and he says the fire won’t touch you.”

“Hm.” Sita was too scared to speak. Her eyes met Rama’s and she read the love in them. She saw tears in his eyes. “Be brave, my darling,” she read. “I don’t doubt you.”

Then why this Agni Pariksha? Her heart was in her mouth, her knees weak and her hands cold. For one year, she had lived in Ravana’s lustful custody. Always scared, always alert. Always aching for her husband’s arms around her. Then Rama had come to rescue her.

They said he had built a bridge across the ocean. She had been proud of him. The day they told her that he had reached Lanka, she had laughed like a madwoman. Or had she cried? Forgetful of all caution, she had gone running to the creek near her prison palace and bathed for an hour. She had decorated herself with flowers. Then Trijata, Ravana’s loyal maid, had seen her and laughed. “He isn’t coming to take you back, my child. He is coming for revenge. To win back his honour.”

The fire roared and Sita stared at it. Rama was looking impatient. “Cross that fire quickly, my darling, and come to me. Don’t torture me more,” his eyes seemed to say. She stepped forward. Another step.

Then she remembered the day Ravana had captured her. Somehow, since the time the Laxmana Rekha had failed her, she hadn’t felt pure again. After all, she had stepped across it on her own. To meet a man.

And what about the day Ravana had come to her with Rama’s shoes? “The battle is over,” he had said. “I have killed your king.” She had screamed and raved and ranted. It wasn’t possible. Rama couldn’t be beaten by this Rakshasa. Why, she had almost killed him herself!
“He is dead,” Ravana repeated. “I will wait for you.” And he left.

That night Trijata had taken her to the tallest castle tower and she had seen her husband’s war camp. She had heard the monkeys mourning. She could feel death in the air. “Go to Ravana,” Trijata was saying. “He loves you. Else he could have forced you to be his slave.”

Sita knew that it was true. For four hours, she tossed and turned in her bed. She wept for Rama and, like a child, she felt angry with him. He had been beaten in the battlefield by another man. A man Sita could have killed! How could Rama have been so careless? He was the best warrior in the whole world. Or did he not love her enough?

At four, in the morning, tired and scared and angry, she had walked to Ravana’s palace. At the door, she had stopped. Why should she surrender herself? Let him come to capture her. She ran back to her palace, strong once more. Let him fight her. She would challenge him. And this time it would be victory or death. Dishonour was not an option for a Kshatriya’s daughter. Then dawn broke and she heard the heroic story of how Hanumana had uprooted a whole mountain to get the Sanjeevani to revive Laxmana. Rama was alive. And he would rescue her.
Did the fire know about her moment of weaknesses? Would it forgive her? Or would it fail her like Laxmana’s Rekha?

She gave herself up to it. She walked through it with her eyes closed, her hair loose and her hands folded. Judge me, Lord, I fear thee not because my heart is pure.

When Sita fell into Rama’s arms, she was limp and unconscious. But safe. And pure.

III

She was surprisingly calm that day. She went to Valmiki’s hut as usual in the morning and decorated it with flowers. She smiled at the gurukul kids walking towards their bath, yawning and grumbling.

She went back to her own hut and tidied it. She tidied her son’s beds and study tables. They were coming back today after a month. One month. One month since they interrupted Rama’s Ashwamedha Yagya.

Today, they were bringing him back with them. She sighed, long and halting. Then she stood up again. There was nothing to think. Her mind was numb. Her heart was clogged with feelings. Feelings her mind didn’t have the strength to untangle.

“They’re coming!” Yamini was panting. “I saw them on the other hill. They were running in front of the whole procession.”

“Is Rama with them?”

“I don’t know.” Yamini tried to protect Sita from any false hopes. “It is a huge procession.”

He was King. He couldn’t travel alone. She remembered a humble man wandering the woods with her. Wandering for 13 years. But he was King. She nodded at Yamini. “I don’t care, you know.”

Yamini didn’t believe her.

He was running. Racing the kids - his sons - to reach the Ashram first. She saw him, still strong and supple, saw his innocent joy at playing with his sons. And such worthy sons at that!

Then he saw her and he stopped. Did his mind also feel numb? Or did he have the strength to feel so much joy? Joy at being defeated by his sons, joy at being shamed by them in public, joy at having found the courage to stand by his wife, joy at being able to cry for her, and the sweet inexplicable pain of standing before her after 10 years of having disowned her, standing like a culprit, waiting to be punished.

The children had stopped, too. They were waiting for their mother to laugh. For their father to ask for forgiveness. For their mother to forgive. They had ached for a father. They had longed to make their mother laugh with joy. For 10 years, she had loved them passionately and goaded them to learn. They had loved her and they had resented her. Today, everything was all right again and they would live happily ever after.

The stillness suffocated her. Beyond Rama, she could see a mass of frozen people. His subjects who had disowned her 10 years ago and had today come for forgiveness. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Valmiki. An old man, a gentle father looking at his daughter as if to say, “You know best, my child. And whatever you do, I will support you.”

The ball was in her court. Till this moment, Rama hadn’t realised the power she would hold over him. The power to forgive. The power to condemn. How naive he had been to think she would come running into his arms! Would she condemn him for ever? “Your sons have deflated my kingly pride, Sita,” he said.

“Forgive me, Sita.” His voice was hoarse and he choked. He did not have the audacity to ask her to come with him.

What was she doing? Praying? For what?

“Forgive me, Sita.” Was he going to faint or was the earth really shaking?

“Sita, I wronged you.” He could hear her voice, calm but powerful. What was this chant? What was she doing?

“SITA!” Was she really sinking into the ground?

“MOTHER!” His sons were crying. Luva was pulling at his hand and pointing to his wife. “Mother…” Kusha was crying. They trusted their father. Everything would be all right, they thought.

Long after Sita disappeared into the ground, Rama stared after her. “She saved herself from me,” he thought. “She was nobody’s slave.”

And he knew then, better than he ever did before that she was pure. So pure. That he, even he couldn’t sully her.

-Richa Saklani

***************************