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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