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ellaa uruvum therinthaam vidam nungiya kann udaiyaar ivar mella mella madam mangaiyaraay en manaththavar aayinaare (I cannot see a waist between her hips and the breast that rise from their wide base. Otherwise I have seen all her forms and with her eyes that have swallowed poison, this young woman, step by step, has entered my heart.) Ravana has seen many women. But he has not seen one like Sita. So he cannot help exclaiming: pande ulaku ezinum ulla padaik kanaaraik kanden ithu polvathu oer penn uruk kantinelnaal unde enin veru ini engai unarthi nindra vandu eru kothai madavaal ival aakum andre (Before this, I have seen all of them with eyes like swords throughout the seven worlds but never before I have seen any woman formed like this. If she is so different it can only be she my sister told of, this young woman whose hair swarms with bees!) 1 These descriptions of Sita give an Imagining Rama – C.S. Lakshmi entirely different dimension to love. They make lust and desire very much a part of love. Someone who has eyes that look like they have swallowed poison and hair swarming with bees because it is so fragrant is certainly not the docile Sita we are used to. The descriptions make her look like a wild beauty. Sita is also someone who can speak her mind. When asked to prove her chastity, she says that even the gods, who can see everything as clearly as a gooseberry placed on the palm, are not capable of knowing a woman’s mind. Kamban uses the word mana nilai which can simply mean the state of mind but it can also be expanded to mean the depths of a woman’s being, which even gods cannot fathom. The text brings a depth to the story through its language. But in order to feel the text one needs the experience of the narrations. The silences in the narrations are filled by the text—by its descriptions and the beauty of its language. When you enter the text through Sita, it becomes a dense and impenetrable forest. You can enter a dense forest and choose your trees and flowers and be happy. You can read the Bala-kanda and go deep into its beauty and not go further. You can 99
100 ArtConnect: The IFA Magazine, Volume 6, Number 1 also go deeper into the forest and follow its mysterious and expanding paths. An epic text offers all these possibilities. A text allows several interpretations and retellings. The text blends with the mind of the readers and assumes a thousand different meanings. Different life experiences can add and remove parts of the text. Since a text allows such liberties I did a retelling of my own in one of my stories called Forest. The last section of the story reads as follows: Nobody was willing to accept Sita’s decision. They said it was not proper to refuse to go when the king of Ayodhya himself had come to take her back. What was her goal, after all? What was she seeking? Then there were Hanuman’s long appeals. The denunciations of the rest of them. She could not recover from her sense of having gone somewhere beneath the earth, somewhere so deep that nobody could reach her. She rose to her feet and looked around the cottage. This time it would be a total renunciation. A lone journey which left behind all those who were known to her, those who spoke lovingly, who dispensed advice. A journey that would be long, that went very deep. The more she walked, the more the forest seemed to extend. She crossed the river, went past a waterfall, and walked on; saw the deer drinking at a small stream, was shocked by deereating tigers, delighted in the sight of baby elephants running alongside the herd, encountered nights through which owls’ eyes glowed, observed the shimmering of green leaves as the sun’s rays fell upon them, was surprised by the leaping of monkeys from branch to branch, their young clinging to their bellies. She walked on. Eagerly. Wearily. She rested. And again she walked. Their meeting took place early one morning. A time when not even the sound of birds was to be heard. The sun was hidden, secretive in the skies. Far away she saw a small hut. The dim light of a lamp flickered through it. The sound of a musical instrument came to her, tearing the darkness. As she came nearer and nearer, she recognized it as vinai music. A tune
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Contents EDITORIAL 3 READING VISUAL
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IFA has collaborated with Adishakti
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Reading Visuals: Timeless Voyages o
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The divine messenger (Agnipurusha)
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they sit in mournful contemplation
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upon a blue-gold sky. Or elsewhere
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his daughter in marriage. Dasharath
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Reading Visuals - Gulammohammed She
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It is difficult to summarise the na
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There are numerous other sights tha
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produces a rare form of intimate ye
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Reading Visuals - Gulammohammed She
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set upon a luminous red ground. In
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Myth Retold: Variants of the Story
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32 ArtConnect: The IFA Magazine, Vo
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Page 69: Wayang Kulit: Where Ravana Dances i
Page 72 and 73: Wayang Kulit - Eddin Khoo the Javan
Page 74 and 75: I could explain what Malaysia is, c
Page 76 and 77: when a member of your family is suf
Page 78 and 79: Wayang Kulit - Eddin Khoo 77 Hanuma
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Page 82 and 83: Wayang Kulit - Eddin Khoo Ravana or
Page 84 and 85: closest to the audience is the most
Page 86 and 87: Wayang Kulit during the 1970s, 1980
Page 88 and 89: Wayang Kulit - Eddin Khoo Winged in
Page 90 and 91: the aim was to ‘museumise’ this
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Page 105: 104 About IFA India Foundation for
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