Sita, the Virgin Mary, and the rest of us

 Have you ever read something for the first time and thought perhaps you'd read it before? Turns out, Sita's Ramayana seems like an exotic, foreign version of a story most of us are familiar with.  After reading it, I couldn't help but compare Sita to the Christian Mary. Both are pregnant. Both have to prove their virtue and goodness to their husbands. Both are idealized as the epitomized as the perfect woman. Both of these epic heroines draw upon a set of near-perfect attributes. Sita could be a  heroine from any number of cultures: women seem to have to prove their worth, and worth is usually based upon sexual purity. The message of Sita is the same one that has been passed down worldwide-- it's that women should be pure, above reproach and love their husbands-- and it doesn't matter that the husbands aren't very smart, worthy or kind. When the reader looks at the illustrations in Sita's Ramayana, we meet Sita as a woman heavily pregnant with twins, forsaken by her husband and the world, looking for a safe haven in the forest. The forest accepts their "sister" and her story is the Ramayana. 

The illustrations of Sita combine childlike innocence -- huge, doe-like eyes, with the unmistakable physical attributes of a woman. Sita is a woman grown, but she still retains the purity and innocence of childhood. That's a hard combination to pull off, especially since she's waddling around with that big belly.

I guess most cultures find a way to combine motherhood and purity somehow. Honestly, it's Deja Vu all over again: Sita,  Mary, innocent babes and the rest of the gang show up in the Ramayana.  The takeaway message is that women like Sita represent the versions of female piety that we should model ourselves after, and their extreme goodness makes them the model for all women to emulate. This text feels like the morality reminder lessons a lot of us were taught when we were young. After all, if Sita and Mary made do with the most extreme circumstances and challenges, then the rest of us should be able to cope with our paltry problems.

 This is a tricky read for a modern woman. There are so many aspects that irk me, but I can't help but appreciate the largeness of the story. We're considering a Sanskrit epic that is one of two great Hindu poems. The poem is written in anustubh, which is a 32 syllable meter and "the characters of Rama, Sita, Lakshman, Bharata, Hanuman and Ravana are all fundamental to the central consciousness of India, Nepal, and many South East Asia countries such as Thailand and Indonesia." ( Wikipedia)

McCloud's Understanding Comics discusses how the use of color " could express a dominant mood."  ( McCloud pp 190) . Reading  Sita's Ramayana is done in bold, primary colors. The story jumps off the page at the reader. It's a story that tells itself, through the use of bold. vibrant color. Intesteringly, the bold color juxtaposed with Sita's demurring persona makes the story more compelling and interesting than it would be otherwise. In a way, the color in the book says more than the characters do by becoming a force of its own. McCloud says " scenes could be virtually about color." and I agree. Sita's Ramayana could be deciphered and understood by the frames alone. In this case, the color says it all : " color as sensation, color as environment, color as color." The story is worth reading for the illustrations alone.

Reading the Ramayana tickles the senses because the novel is read as much as seen and absorbed. Sita. Mary and all of womankind live boldly-- its too bad the moments that define and showcase the strengths of women are also sometimes the most polarizing and unhappy events in our life.

Arni, S Sita's Ramayana Penguin/Zubaan, 2013

McCloud, S Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. Harper, 1993