Sita's Ascent Read Free Page B

feel threatened by difference, they call it “evil”.
     They have now become quick to associate Ravana with what is foreign, therefore
     different; and different equals evil. But difference is not evil. That’s
     what has become the curse of us women, coming from a different place with different
     ways of doing things. Oh, Urmilla, let us vow that this child will never be made to
     feel a stranger here in Ayodhya, at Mithila, or anywhere in the
     world.’
    Urmilla knew how the trial by fire, the
     agnipariksha, had made Sita burn with anger, not shame. After all, when she had been
     asked to prove her purity in public, Sita was the one who had called out to Agni and
     the essence of fire as ammunition in her defence. Only a woman who possessed such an
     infinite capacity to love could go through that—not for her man, or to
     justify herself to the world, but because she raged against the inquisition all
     women had to face. ‘How dare anyone question me?’ Sita would
     sometimes mutter under her breath. Urmilla initially thought this was the Sita of
     their youth in Mithila, positioning herself occasionally as a royal in a moment of
     an adolescent tantrum. But soon it was clear that Sita was reworking in her mind the
     ordeal she had been through when she was held hostage in Ravana’s
     exquisite Asokavan garden. It was exquisite to the visitor, but the mental traps
     that were constantly being set and changedto utterly confuse
     everyone about what was real required the moral and physical resilience of a martial
     art guru. So when she was released and asked to demonstrate how
     ‘pure’ she was, everything within Sita rankled. Urmilla
     wondered: ‘Was there ever any choice? She was lucky she fell in love with
     Rama. But between being married and touched by one man who was the husband and being
     abducted and held hostage—or, as others would say, according to
     convenience, being “kept”—by another, how many women
     could tell the difference?’ It was the ritual of marriage—the
     vows taken for the family, the state, for the protection of the future, the children
     not yet born—which sanctified the relationship in everyone’s
     eyes. Sita had reached a point past caring for social opinion. She not only knew
     what the truth was but wanted to stand in for every other person who was challenged
     about their innocence, whether it was within relationships or for the sake of social
     opinion. It was clear from the way Sita would look straight into anyone’s
     eyes—Urmilla’s, of the maids-in-waiting, the
     servants’, or Rama’s—when she gave an instruction or
     was queried. She was without artifice and challenged anyone, royal or subject, who
     was conciliatory towards her. In Sita, there had emerged a strange combination of
     being open but also on guard.
    ‘I should have come with you
     into exile. I would have massaged your neck and back every night after those longtreks. Then you wouldn’t have had these tension knots
     all along the back of your neck!’
    ‘Aha! But you can’t
     deny that exile made my hair grow long and heavy—that’s
     what’s giving me the tension. Can you imagine, Urmi, if I had to coil all
     this hair on top of my head like the sages!’
    ‘Mm, I don’t think
     your head is hard enough for it, Sita,’ Urmilla replied. They both laughed
     at themselves, remembering the time when they were girls in Mithila, acting in
     religious dance dramas depicting life-denying ascetics and seductive courtesans.
    During the day Rama was busy with
     affairs that brought people from different parts of the kingdom to seek his
     audience, offer counsel or represent grievances and inform him directly. In the
     afternoon, before lunch he would be briefed on matters within the court and its
     councils. He would retreat to his palace where Sita waited for them to have lunch
     together, as Urmilla would hurry back to her apartments to wait for Lakshmana.
    Lakshmana’s hair was