Sita's Ascent (14 page)

In an age when England was becoming
serious about addressing its multiculturalism—schools in Bradford,
Birmingham and Leicester, besides the boroughs in London, had 40 per cent black and
Asian students in classrooms—my Ramayana was leading the way across
curriculums in primary and secondary schools, and as performance in venues for art
and in concert halls, with the greeting of ‘Diwali Mubarak’. I
was learning at each telling how to interpolate contemporary references from British
news within the story; in turn, audiences related to the contexts within an Indian
epic that was fundamentally about the human struggle to live by certain ideals.
Story or epic, the Ramayana became a window to a cultural sensibility or to an
Indian way of thinking.

And, finally, the first thing: my
fascination for exploring a literary form to tell a woman’s story.

What is at the heart of
Sita’s Ascent
? It is an exploration of the psychological
dimension that reveals Sita’s human condition. It allows identification
and empathy with Sita, instead of viewing her as a victim. Had Sita been a victim
she would not have survived.

In 1998, Kathleen Hamilton, CEO of
Leicester Haymarket Theatre Trust commissioned me to write and perform Ramayana, in
a city with 30 per cent Asians of Indian, Pakistani and East African origin and
predominantly Gujarati speakers. This was directed by Chris Banfield (who was at the
time the deputy head of the department of theatre studies at the University of
Birmingham, having directed the works of Girish Karnad and Badal Sircar and those of
other contemporary Indian dramatists). He integrated the music of internationally
renowned percussionist Colin Seddon. The storytelling performance was now two hours
long and had a simple but evocative set and lighting design by Jenny Campbell.

In the years before, the episodic action
of Rama and Sita’s life had been the driving force behind my performances.
For the first time, working with a theatre director made it possible for me to chart
the many narratives from Paula Richman’s work as well as use my own
encounters with the regional versions. I wanted to adapt these for a staged,
dramatic version for viewers who were both familiar and unfamiliar with the cultural
contexts, that is, East African Asians and British audiences.

This was when I first started focusing
on the psychological aspects of the characters in Ramayana, which led them to their
actions. My interest was caught by the thread of Sita’s story, in spite of
her absence in Ramayana till she
makes her decision to accompany
Rama into exile. Yes, she is crucial to the plot and structure of the epic. But a
remembrance of her, a search for her and her absence make her essential qualities
come alive.

In Ramayana, it is the women who propel
the action—Ahalya, Manthara, Kaikeyi, Soorpanakka and Sita. And the
stories backstage, the hidden women—Urmilla, Mandodari—began to
gain a voice that told me more about Sita. But live performances never allow for
that kind of time and space, not with theatre time directives. What the performance
and dramatization did allow was to get the characters to exchange dialogue,
revealing their relationships, longings, struggles, joys and their empathy with the
human condition, even though they were worshipped as gods in another culture. Among
the different Indian philosophies and systems of thinking, being and becoming, there
is one that talks about unlocking the divine in the human. Here was an opportunity
to discover what it meant to be human, in all its colours of despair, love beyond
abandonment, rage and compassion. Most empathetic parents want to leave behind a
story for their children. I doubt they do it out of the need to achieve immortality
as much as out of their unconditional love which they feel should remain a constant
thread for their children despite the changes in the world. That, for me, is
Sita’s ascent—the heaviness of what she endures illumines
and embraces the human condition with triumph. It is not about
victory, conquest or martyrdom; it is about resourcing a daily energy to overcome
with lightness and love.

In one sense, Sita is an inheritance and
a legacy for many women, not an imposition. While reimagining Sita and her story, it
was an enriching journey to enter into the idea that Sita is exiled and
adopted—both literally and metaphorically—by the country
endorsed as ‘marriage’. In our times, endurance in women is
precariously interpreted as the attribute of a ‘victim’, but
Sita has resourcefulness, fortitude, cheerfulness and an ocean of love despite being
placed in circumstances not of her choosing, as an orphan and an exile.

Tithiksha, or forbearance, affords the
simultaneous ability to experience the immediate without losing sight of what
endures against all odds. Sita here radiates across time, challenging every author
to write the story she directs. She is never dour or tragic, and she is increasingly
spontaneous and defiantly compassionate.

Sita’s Ascent
is a
storyteller’s imagining of a character from an epic that has been told and
retold over millennia. From the familiar it plunges into the labyrinth of the
unfamiliar, casting a new light on a quality that goes out of fashion because of its
‘moral’ overtones in the past. This retelling
is about getting into the fibre, life and essence of a person who is an icon.

As a storyteller I could opt for a path
of recitation and/or interpolation. Both keep the folk and oral epic traditions
alive. But it is the interpolators who have made their stories evolve across
politics, resistances and history by placing the familiar characters in challenging
circumstances, within the context of contemporary occurrences, to renew their
endurance.

In
Sita’s Ascent
the
real storyteller is Hanuman who remains silent, watches the drama and takes action.
He is able to enter Sita’s inner world and witness her ability to engage
with the urgent and the immediate, while she simultaneously understands and
expresses the call of what is constant in life.

So much in life happens due to
miscommunication, thoughts felt and left unexpressed, roles that have to be
played—even when there is love. Because there is love, the greater is the
pain of endurance when there is loss or absence, which offers us a spiral of
reflection. Only the truly buoyant can weather it and come out of it radiant.
Hanuman, in this novella, signals that for us—Sita’s ascent is
more powerful because we see it coming.

It was a privilege when Kamini Mahadevan invited me to embark on the Sita story. Thanks to her and Penguin and the many readers who have seen it through. I thank Chris Banfield as a director for an inspirational process in keeping the epic alive across cultures, Lakshmi Holmström for her continued reading and observations; placing ‘The Ring of Memory’, among other essays, and her evocative translations from Ramayana in my path; and introducing me to Paula Richman, to whom I am indebted for her incredible research and generosity. Dr David Schulman, Dr Stuart Blackburn, Dr Velacheru Narayana Rao and Richard Blurton for endorsing my ‘English’ retelling of Ramayana. Dr Darryll Grantley, Dr Nicola Shaughnessy, Emily Parrish, Dan Thompson, Craig Jenkins and all my
students from the University of Kent for participating in it; Ben Haggarty for festivalizing it; Di Cooper for using it in a session in Central School of Speech and Drama; Colin Seddon for his mammoth undertaking with the music; and Kathleen Hamilton with Leicester Theatre Trust, Kulbir Natt and the Barbican who created platforms for it across twenty-two years, which are still running. Dr Mukulika Banerjee, Judy McKnight, Dee Ashworth, Raji Krishnan, as trustees of the Vayu Naidu Storytelling Theatre Company, for championing it, the Arts and Humanities Research Council with the University of Kent, Canterbury, and Arts Council England for funding the research, development and founding of this platform of work.

Last but not least, to my grandmother, Allarmelu Mangathai Calpakkam Karunanidhi Naidu, and my beloved mother, Jayarukmini Naidu, and father, Major General Aban Naidu, who are remembered as the great storytellers straddling cultures to keep the epic alive. Hari Sagar Naidu for his ocean of compassion, Upendra Sagar for his idealism and Viji Vasudev for her Ramayana for children. To my cousin Urmilla, who taught me the meaning of her name, and to Krishna for the note and your attentive reading.

Swami Tripurananda is thanked for his discussions on Tithiksha and its relevance. Usha Aroor for being an early
and constant guide in the complexities of epics and their characters and for placing
Yuganta
in my hands thirty years ago.

To Chris, my husband of many lives, this is a simple dedication thanking you for your epic endurance and hospitality to all the characters in this novella who stayed for as long as they wanted in our home; to Unmai who always understands when it is time for silence and rest, and for alerting me to the compassion hidden in the strength of Hanuman.

This work is for Thakur, with love, who is there when it all happens. And now, over to Sita.

Published by the Penguin Group
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First published by Penguin Books India 2012

Copyright © Vayu Naidu 2012

Cover image: Sita returns to Mother Earth, courtesy National Museum, New Delhi

All rights reserved

This is a work of fiction. All situations, incidents, dialogue and characters, based on some well-known mythological figures, mentioned in this novella, are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. They are not intended to depict actual events or gods or to change the entirely fictional nature of the work. In all other respects, any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

ISBN: 978-01-4341-528-2

This digital edition published in 2012.
e-ISBN: 978-81-8475-771-2

¹
Cited in the
Guardian
Book Club by John Mullan,‘A Christmas
Carol’ by Charles Dickens, discussing the form of the novella. Accessed 16
December 2011.

²
Paula Richman,
Many Ramayanas: The Diversity of a Narrative Tradition in
South Asia
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991).

³
Writing about
The Jedi in the Lotus
by Steven Rosen (Arktos: London,
2010), Charles S.J. White says:

Rosen’s study shows the
influence of
Star Wars
on Joseph Campbell, Mircea Eliade and other
major scholars of mythology who were consulted by Lucas to develop his
understanding. These scholars were steeped in the lore of the hero in the
Mahabharata and Ramayana, as well as other aspects of the Indian tradition.
Their theories impacted ‘the creator of Star Wars,’ who
said, ‘I’m telling an old myth in a new
way.’
    A striking outcome of
Rosen’s analysis is possibly to heighten the interest of readers in
the relevance of the mythic traditions of India to the sensibility of a modern
cinematic artist. With that deeper insight they are given the opportunity
through George Lucas’s films to journey imaginatively to participate
with him in the reality of India’s ancient mythic experience. (Quoted
from
The Jedi in the Lotus
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