Ramayana stands among India's oldest epic poems, one of the two surviving stories dating as far back as the seventh century B.C. Unfortunately, its protagonist has not stood the test of time. The poem tells the story of Rama, an exiled prince whose wife, Sita, chooses to accompany him despite not facing the same punishment. When Sita is kidnapped, Rama rescues her more out of a sense of obligation than love, ultimately questioning his wife's virtue and casting her away through no fault of her own. Rama is upheld as the ideal man, husband, and king throughout his tale. Samhita Arni, the author of Sita's Ramayana, clearly thinks otherwise.
Sita's Ramayana, as one might suspect, is a graphic novel retelling of the epic poem shared from Sita's point of view. The original poem leaves little room for the exploration of her character, treating her more as a blank slate meant to represent the ideal wife of the time. She merely exists to shape her husband's character, and she falls victim to a cruel double standard despite her undying loyalty to Rama. She is a plot device, nothing more, and Arni strives to give her the dignity of her own well-deserved story.
One could say Sita's Ramayana is feminist literature. I certainly think so, and I'm sure Arni found her inspiration in the misogynistic overtones of the original poem. However, there is more to this comic than a "simple" feminist retelling. Sita is given a voice, changing and developing as we explore her motivations and see her tragedy through her own eyes. She is no longer a blank slate but a person, and her tale treats her with the same dignity as the original poem did for her husband. The comic features gorgeous traditional artwork by Moyna Chitrakar, and every panel burns with character, cutting through Sita's pain as the injustice seeks to destroy her. I recall a point from Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics: a good comic tells its story through its artwork, and when so many pages are awash with violent reds and somber blues, we can know what Sita is feeling without ever reading a word.
Sita's Ramayana, as one might suspect, is a graphic novel retelling of the epic poem shared from Sita's point of view. The original poem leaves little room for the exploration of her character, treating her more as a blank slate meant to represent the ideal wife of the time. She merely exists to shape her husband's character, and she falls victim to a cruel double standard despite her undying loyalty to Rama. She is a plot device, nothing more, and Arni strives to give her the dignity of her own well-deserved story.
One could say Sita's Ramayana is feminist literature. I certainly think so, and I'm sure Arni found her inspiration in the misogynistic overtones of the original poem. However, there is more to this comic than a "simple" feminist retelling. Sita is given a voice, changing and developing as we explore her motivations and see her tragedy through her own eyes. She is no longer a blank slate but a person, and her tale treats her with the same dignity as the original poem did for her husband. The comic features gorgeous traditional artwork by Moyna Chitrakar, and every panel burns with character, cutting through Sita's pain as the injustice seeks to destroy her. I recall a point from Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics: a good comic tells its story through its artwork, and when so many pages are awash with violent reds and somber blues, we can know what Sita is feeling without ever reading a word.
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| Source: Anri, Samhita and Moyna Chitrakar. Sita’s Ramayana. Groundwood Books. 2018. |
Despite all this, Sita is far from the passive damsel-in-distress archetype she is painted as in Ramayana. She acknowledges the cruelty that surrounds her and frequently questions why she is punished despite her devotion. Sita wants desperately to be the ideal wife for her beloved husband, yet she is torn between her identity as a wife and as a human being. Even if her story is ultimately a tragedy, we can take Arni's depiction as a celebration of her character, not only giving her a voice after suffering in silence for millennia, but framing it as an epic tale to be held in the same esteem as her husband's.
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