The three hundred Ramayanas, A. K. Ramanujan’s essay on the timeless epic, might have been shunted out of history textbooks in Delhi University but Sita’s Ramayana is doing definitely well worldwide.
Conceived and produced by Tara Books in Chennai and published by Groundwood Books in North America, Sita’s Ramayana – a graphic novel that retells the Ramayana from Sita’s perspective – has made it to the bestsellers list of the New York Times.
Interestingly, three women – the heroine Sita, writer Samhita Arni and Patua scroll artist Moyna Chitrakar have made Sita’s Ramayana possible.
Moyna Chitrakar belongs to Patua community, which practices the 1,000-year-old Patua art, native to Bengal. Though a large number of the Patua community members are Muslims, they are experts in presenting epics such as the Ramayana and the Mahabharatha through their art work.
Tara Books had an exhibition of Chitrakar’s paintings of the Ramayana from which Arni wrote her version of the epic.
Arni’s tryst with mythology began when she was four. Her book Mahabharatha: A Child’s View was written when she was 11 and won critical acclaim.
Arni’s Sita empathises with Shurpanaka and finds Rama an alien when he asks her to walk into fire. The innovative retelling of the Ramayana in a feminist perspective has struck the right chord with the international audience.
"The Ramayana has been told in many ways. This version draws on the long tradition of female retellings of the saga, recounting a compelling story of women’s fate," says V. Geeta, of Tara Books.