About the sacred feminine

I have to say this right at the start: Amish has found his mojo again. After a terrific trilogy on Shiva (The Immortals of Meluha, The Secret of the Nagas, The Oath of the Vayuputras), his Ram katha, Scion of Ikshvaku, had flagged quite a bit. Here, the author presents a most likeable Sita in what can be read as a sort of origin story.

The cover picture has a woman in attack mode, all muscle and sinew, and one wonders whether this could indeed be the adarsh Bhartiya nari of legend. But it is, and the book makes clear that this is a different Sita.

As is his trademark, Amish takes the basic facts to be found in lore and legend, and injects into them enough light flourishes to keep the reader absorbed. This Sita, then, is no simpering, unquestioningly obedient ideal; she is a feisty woman handy with her bow and arrow and short arms too, always seeking, always in questing mode. This Sita knew Jatayu before she wed Ram; this Sita more or less adopted Hanuman as a brother since he is the cousin of her best friend Radhika, at sage Vishwamitra’s gurukul.

When we first meet her, she is in a forest clearing fighting off Raavan and Kumbhakarna’s army, giving almost as good as she gets. And we are off, with this cracker of an opening passage. The story then goes into flashback mode and we learn how Sita was a mysteriously abandoned baby adopted by King Janak and his wife Sunaina, how she trains in the martial arts at Guru Vishwamitra’s ashram, even as some distance away, Ayodhya’s young princes are training with Guru Vashishtha.

Quite the most impressive thing about Sita’s story is how she is always in control of whatever is happening to her. Indeed, she drives some very significant changes, too, and that is a heartening message.

What has been short-changed is real depth of emotions, whether between Ram and Sita, Lakshman and Urmila, Sita and Jatayu; most of the time, emotions seem to have been glossed over or given a surface treatment. There is some disquietingly foolish giggling which is meant to indicate that our doughty warrior princess may be on the verge of falling in love with the man she has picked out as her partner in life. But that is all.

The homilies are direct but stay just that, homilies, not sermons. We learn of the country’s need for Vishnus, the Propagators of Good (capitals Amish’s, not mine) to protect, govern, keep the peace; how to adroitly protect the poor without having the rich rebel in reaction; how a canny combination of the heart and mind will help one make the right decisions; how non-violence cannot really save the day; just why the sages of yore preferred an oral, moving and moveable history to written accounts; that Sita is five years older to Ram; that Raavan originally belonged to Kannauj. Then there is a pithy description of India today though the reference is to the India of Sita’s time: a land riven by hatred for money, disdain for wisdom and love of violence.

Here too, you have Ram, Lakshman and Sita adopting a contemporary parlance, using words like ‘wow’, ‘right’, ‘yuck’. Atheists get a look-in, so does the Nirbhaya incident; there is mention of Neanderthal, a valley of Neander and Vishnuhood; of Vyomkesh, a ‘popular fictional detective from folk stories’; of surgical strikes; the Game of Thrones; of Annapoorna Devi, the ‘greatest stringed instrument player alive’; of chemical warfare and yes, of jallikattu.

Sita makes a trip to God’s Own Country, the god here being the last Vishnu Parashuram (or Parshu Ram, as Amish would have it) of course, and the description of the lands is almost seraphic.

The big reveal is made early in the book and everything then works towards the plan, and while you won’t find any spoilers here, it is the most interesting reveal and plan.

However, this reviewer just has to reiterate one inescapable fact: as Amish grows in stature, his editors are obviously treating his written word as sacrosanct and seem reluctant to wield the blue pencil. Just like the last of the Shiva trilogy and the Ram Chandra book, this one too has italics galore, almost all of them in places where they shouldn’t be, and it is a messy affair. Sample this: And the holy janau, sacred thread, tied over his shoulder. And this: thank you, chacha, Sita squealed as she jumped into her uncle Kushadhwaj’s arms. Or this: she felt like an apsara, a celestial nymph. I will confess, I counted more than 20 such lines. Once again, awkward sentence construction rears its head, too. Sample this: The bird squawked frantically. Its voice sounding like a wail.

That aside, quite a fun read, the story of this warrior princess.