AGAINST/TAMRAM/feb,dr3,nn9may04
AGAINST THE CURRENT: SITA AND HER FOILS
IN MODERN TAMIL AND TELUGU SHORT STORIES
By Paula Richman
Although proponents of Hindutva have called upon “the” Ramayana to legitimate
attacks on mosques and demonize people they do not consider “Indians,” their actual
ventures into Ramkatha remain quite shallow. They draw from an unspecified, yet solely
correct, “Ramayana” that follows the basic plot lines of Valmiki’s Sanskrit Ramayana
and resembles Ramcharitmanas of Tulsidas in its devotional tone.1 Defenders of the
Babri Masjid’s destruction claim that the mosque had been built on the spot where Rama
was born. Images of a huge Rama standing, his bow strung for attack, in front of a mockup of the temple they plan to build at Ayodhya, appear throughout their publications.2
Some allege that Sita’s own kitchen stood on the site, while members of the BJP’s youth
wing have styled themselves as followers of Hanuman, devotee of Rama and patron deity
of wrestlers, to symbolize their militancy.3 Yet, this highly selective appropriation of
characters demonstrates the static view that most Hindutva proponents have of Ramkatha.
Their use is iconic rather than episodic, based not upon unfolding actions and narrative
complexity, but upon fixed and univocal characters.
Hindutva deployment of Ramkatha imagery ignores the historical fluidity,
diversity, and vitality of the Ramayana tradition. In contrast to Hindutva’s use of
selected characters in fixed ways, scholars over the last decade have demonstrated in
great depth the breadth, richness, and oppositional strands within the Ramayana tradition.
Even Sanskrit literature includes a set of texts that question Valmiki’s interpretation,
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such as Bhavabhuti’s eighth-century play, Uttararamacarita. In addition, over the
centuries the story has been retold in regional languages and been recited, sung, and
enacted, generating many performances and occasions for exegesis.4 Simultaneously,
orally transmitted folk versions that vary widely from locality to locality have spread
throughout the land. With the coming of relatively inexpensive printing in India’s
regional language scripts, diversity has taken yet a fourth form, as self-consciously
modern bhasha (regional language) writers have retold Ramkatha, for their own time, in
prose genres such as the short story.
Yet Ramayana scholars have hitherto given short shrift to twentieth-century prose
renderings of Ramkatha in regional Indian languages, even though some are among the
most artfully crafted and renowned stories in modern Indian literature. In earlier
centuries, poets earned a name for themselves by composing a “classic” Ramayana or
Mahabharata in their mother tongue (e.g. Kamban in Tamil, Krittibasa in Bengali,
Eluttachan in Malayalam). Today some of India’s most creative, perceptive, and widelyhailed writers have turned to the short story to develop the very components of Ramayana
tradition that Hindutva proponents have ignored. In order to demonstrate the extent to
which such writers have explored Ramkatha’s complexities and multiple facets, this
essays examines a selection of outstanding modern short stories on Ramkatha themes.
Today one can gain familiarity with Ramkatha in a number of ways. One can
memorize verses of Valmiki with a guru; study sections of a “classic” regional version
(e.g. by Kampan) at school, listen to a grandparent recount the story in the mother tongue
at bedtime, watch a drama troupe perform at festival time, read an Amar Chitra Katha
comic book, or watch the 72-episode Doordarshan serial on video-cassette. Still, a large
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number of Indians assume that whatever version of the story they know is, essentially,
“the” story. Homogenization of Ramkatha through television and comic books has made
many people less aware of other ways to tell the story than would have been the case a
century earlier, when most people learned the story in fluid oral versions from itinerant
storytellers or kin.5 To insure a broad and robust collection of examples in this essay, I
draw from two regional literary traditions: Tamil and Telugu.6 By doing so, I show that
even within the modern regional tellings, a undeniable diversity exists in how characters
and events are envisioned. A talented set of modern prose writers of Tamil and Telugu
have retold Ramkatha incidents in new idioms with fresh perspectives.
This essay explores how Tamil and Telugu writers construct gender within the
Ramayana tradition at both the ideological and formal level. The portrayal of Sita has
generally been an endeavor loaded with cultural freight since she is often identified as the
quintessential exemplar of the self-sacrificing wife. In Tamil and Telugu short stories,
writers seldom emphasize Sita’s identity as Goddess Lakshmi on earth. Instead, they
portray her acting according to local custom. In addition, since authoritative Ramkatha
texts deal with only a small part of Sita’s lifespan, lots of room for creativity exists. In
addition, new perspectives emerge when the author considers particular events from
Sita’s point of view, rather than from Rama’s or Valmiki’s point of view.
The most common characteristic shared by the short stories analyzed in this paper
is “domestication,” a pattern whose main characteristics were first identified by A.K.
Ramanujan in his study of how folk performers transformed classical Sanskrit stories.
First, avataras tend to become subject to human limitations. For example, they must blow
their noses like other people, and sometimes find themselves constrained by social
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customs. Second, the story itself becomes localized; village festival days, rituals, or
sacred sites play a role in the story. Finally, “folk versions tend to contemporize the
action at various points.”7 When authors contemporize the story, their characters speak
in the colloquial dialect and slang of the time, and they act in ways that the audience
would find familiar. Lutgendorf has documented domestication as well in textual
exegesis of Ramcharitmanas, during which expositors use the text “as a framework to be
fleshed out with imaginary and highly colloquial dialogues containing touches of humor
and pathos often missing from the original.”8 The domestication found in folk tradition
and oral exegesis also appears in a number of the short stories about Sita analyzed below.
Fresh aspects of Sita’s life also emerge through short stories focusing upon her
female foils, Surpanakha and Ahalya. Use of a foil, that which sets off or enhances
another by contrast, enables the author to juxtapose Sita with another woman who shares
some of Sita’s qualities or experiences. On the one hand, Surpanakha’s independence
and bold comportment throw Sita’s modesty and self-sacrifice into relief.9 On the other
hand, both women loved Rama but were rejected and mistreated by him; he ordered
Surpanakha mutilated and Sita banished. In a similar vein, Ahalya and Sita suffered
greatly due to their husbands’ suspicions of their chastity. Cursed by her husband to
become a stone after Indra seduced her, impure Ahalya, received grace from Rama’s feet.
In contrast, Rama banished faithful Sita.
This essay explores two questions about prominent twentieth-century Tamil and
Telugu short stories. First, how do writers create a character who is recognizable as Sita
but relevant enough to reader’s lives for them to care about her? Second, how do writers
re-envision the relationship between Sita and Surpanakha or Ahalya in ways that question
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or destabilize the gendered dichotomies about “good” and “bad” women and to what
purpose? Looking closely at short stories from two modern literary traditions in India
suggests the extent to which the unimaginative and static views of Rama’s story held by
Hindutva adherents do an injustice to the continuing generativity of the Ramayana
tradition. If one goes further, bringing into the picture modern short stories in Kannada,
Malayalam, and other regional languages, the point becomes inescapable.10 Knowing
and retelling such stories allows one to play a small part in opposing the ongoing
homogenization, and potential fossilization, of the rich Ramayana tradition.
DOMESTICATING SITA
When a writer portrays Sita as subjected to the same social pressures experienced
by her intended readers, Sita’s trials resonate particularly strongly with the audience.
When an author imagines Sita during a part of her life not treated in other narratives, the
story presents a fuller view of her character than previously available.11 When an author
gives Sita words that enable her to get the upper hand in an argument with Rama, readers
encounter Sita’s perseverance and intelligence in terms not dependent upon shastraic
definitions of proper behavior. In sum, in many modern Tamil and Telugu short stories,
Sita turns from a stock pativrata into a woman whose experiences impel her to reflect
upon her life and to transform it. A Sita emerges who speaks in new ways.
Kumudini Depicts Sartorial Dilemmas
In the 1930s and 1940s, Ranganayaki Thatham (1905-1986), who wrote under the
pseudonym of Kumudini, won a set of loyal readers for witty stories and essays that
appeared in a variety of weeklies and magazines. An original thinker, spirited storyteller,
and “home economist” (before the term was coined), she married into a Sri Vaishnavite
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family in Sri Rangam. Educated at home in religious texts and languages, she became a
follower of Gandhi and shocked people by wearing cotton khadi (homespun cloth) even
to weddings. While raising her own family in a large joint-family, she awoke earlier than
anyone else to write stories before she began her daily household chores. Her masterly
use of humor and brevity made her a pioneer in modern Tamil fiction, while her deep
knowledge of traditional religious characters enabled her to interpret familiar tales in
original ways. The Tamil short story “Letters of Lady Sita” appeared in Kumudini’s
multi-part series about women in puranas titled “Mail from the Inner Palace” in the
popular Tamil weekly magazine Anantha Vigathan in 1934.12
“Letters of Lady Sita” consists of correspondence that the princess ostensibly
wrote from Ayodhya to her mother shortly after her marriage. Sita never acts in a way
that is anything but respectful, obedient, and devoted to her husband, her father, and her
father-in-law. Kumudini portrays the new bride as carefully conforming to the proper
behavior and comportment expected of a young daughter-in-law. Yet as events unfold,
the dutiful daughter feels pressure to dress so as to broadcast her marital family’s status
and prestige. In her letters to her mother, she expresses deep anxiety about gendered
expectations about clothing in her new home.
In Sita’s first letter, Kumudini emphasizes how Sita’s in-laws ridicule her
unsophisticated clothing. Cosmopolitan Ayodhya, a major center on the north Indian
trade route, boasts the latest women’s fashions. In contrast, in Sita’s conservative
homeland of Mithila (in today's Bihar near the Indian border with Nepal), clothing styles
have not changed much over the years. Sita arrives at her husband's home with a
trousseau of clothes woven by Mithila’s finest artisans, but those saris have wide borders,
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while current fashion in Ayodhya calls for narrow ones. Women in court mock Sita’s
terribly out-of-style saris. In her first letter, Sita asks her mother for a narrow-bordered
blue sari, just like the one that won her sister-in-law Shanta, compliments in the court.13
Sita’s second letter to her mother, however, records her disillusionment with the
sky-blue sari because its color bleeds in the wash. Sita labels Shanta’s sari, astiramaka,
not permanent or "firm." The term stiramaka, when not used in the negative form,
alludes to the firmness of mind that a highly disciplined person gains by cultivating
detachment from desires and possessions. Here Kumudini deftly transforms a seemingly
trivial story of sartorial preference into a political lesson about the flaws of craving
imported goods over locally-made items. The foreign-made sari acts as an emblem of
consumer desires that, according to Gandhi, undermine India’s economic wellbeing.
Kumudini's critique of over-emphasis on external appearances develops more
fully in Sita's third letter, which reveals her in panic over what to wear to Rama’s
coronation. Soon to be on view before the kingdom as a representation of Lakshmi, Sita
worries that her wardrobe is inadequate for the ritual that elevates her from a relatively
low-status daughter-in-law to queen of Ayodhya. She asks her for a very grand sari so
that citizens will consider her worthy, confessing that she is consumed by anxiety about
wearing the correct sari. Here Kumudini ridicules excessive social pressures about
appearance, showing how they undermine Sita's peace of mind.
Sita's hurried fourth letter indicates that Sita has regained equanimity of mind.
She informs her mother that she will leave immediately with Rama for the forest. As
before, Kumudini has Sita ask her mother to send appropriate sartorial furnishings. Her
request for bark cloth, however, indicates a major conceptual breakthrough. Instead of
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worrying about what others may think about her clothes, she considers the practical
function of clothing. For wandering through the rough lands beyond the bounds of
settled life, she requests an outfit that will protect her from thorns and keep her dry
during the rain. The forest allows her to set aside sartorial concerns. Her fourth letter’s
postscript contains what Sita has learned as a new bride, generalizing for others:
P.S. From now on, I don't have to think about the color of saris. Great
peace has been established in my mind. I have realized how excellent
it would be if every woman went to live in the forest. The worries of
life would be reduced by half.
In four short pages of prose, Kumudini has made Sita contemporary to her readers,
imagining her as experiencing pressures that many new brides in the 1930s encountered
Kumudini depicts Sita at a time in her life about which little is recorded: her early
days in her marital joint family. In addition, while the Sita of Valmiki and Tulsidas is
depicted primarily as embodying a static set of ideal characteristics, Kumudini’s Sita
grows and matures; eventually she rejects being treated as a status symbol by her
clothing. Furthermore, Kumudini transforms a section of Ramkatha into a domestic tale,
while simultaneously addressing contemporary political issues about swadeshi goods.
Thus, involvement in Sita’s story becomes a way of thinking not only about ancient times
but also the present.
Ambai on Sita’s Middle Age
Kumudini’s story shares notable features with a more recent story by C.S.
Lakshmi (1944-), a prize-winning Tamil writer and admirer of Kumudini’s work.
Lakshmi, known to readers as “Ambai,” published her first novel in 1967 and has been
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writing short stories and poetry in Tamil for more than 25 years. Among her several
collections of stories, Cirakukal Muriyum is best known.14 In Bombay, she founded and
currently directs Sound and Picture Archives for Research on Women, which focuses
upon achievements in the arts by women. Among the most prominent and widely
translated female writers in Tamil today, Ambai has won admiration for tackling daring
and complex subjects in carefully crafted prose. Ambai’s “Forest”(Adavi) first appeared
in a collection of short stories published in 2000.15 In “Forest” Ambai establishes a link
between ancient Sita and a modern Sita-like character named Chenthiru by juxtaposing
several stories about Sita from folk tradition with an account of Chenthiru’s retreat to the
forest in middle age to write about Sita’s life. The interspersed narratives of Sita and
Chenthiru suggest parallels between their experiences.
While Kumudini links her story to Ramkatha through the device of letters,
Ambai’s link is more explicitly oppositional. Chenthiru’s husband, who disapproves of
his wife going alone to the forest, comments that in ancient days only men went to the
forest on their own; Chenthiru replies, “The time has come to re-write the epics.” Later
in “Forest” when Valmiki encounters Sita inscribing palmleaves and asks if she writes
about the same Sita that he portrayed, she tells him that, as a poet, he played the role of
chronicler. In contrast, Sita was at the heart of the events; authorizing her unique vantage
point, she declares: “My language is different.” By portraying ancient Sita and modern
Chenthiru moving on parallel tracks throughout “Forest,” Ambai depicts Sita through
Chenthiru’s concerns, as if Chenthiru were actually rewriting the epic. At the same time,
Chenthiru’s reflections deepen when she re-imagines Sita’s life.
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The culminating section of Ambai’s story presents Sita in middle age. Her sons
have returned to Ayodhya with Rama, but she has refused to accompany them because
Rama asked her to submit to another fire ordeal. Instead, she has abandoned the security
of Valmiki’s ashram to wander deep into the forest. There, following the sounds of vina
music to a small hut, she encounters an ascetic who identifies himself as Ravana. When
he tells how he escaped death and has awaited meeting her again, exasperated Sita
assumes he is still in thrall to his infatuation with young Sita. Announcing that she is
over forty years old, she expresses weariness with her life’s “many tragedies” and
resentment at being imprisoned in her body.
Yet Ravana too has aged, and now devotes himself to music. He offers to teach
Sita to play the rudravinai, a stringed instrument whose design is inspired, according to
tradition, by the shape of Parvati’s body.16 Although Ravana concedes that the body can
act as a prison, he contends that it can be a path to fulfillment if used to make music. He
urges her to learn the rudravinai so creativity can fill her life: “Don’t think of it as an
ordinary musical instrument. Think of it as your life, and play on it.” When he attempts
to put the instrument in her lap, Sita instead insists that he place it on the ground so she
can grasp it herself. When asked why, she describes herself as one with “[a] life that
many hands have tossed about, like a ball. Now let me take hold of it [the vina]; take it
into my own hands.” The story with Sita lifting the vina to begin life anew.
Imagining her heroine as an older woman in Ambai’s day, Ambai imputes to Sita
a version of a mid-life reassessment. Like today’s “empty nesters,” Sita’s responsibilities
for her offspring have largely ended. Looking back on many years of self-sacrifice, Sita
sees how she let others control her life. The tragedies she suffered have drained and
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disheartened her, but Ravana’s offer suggests a new chance. Lifting the rudravina, as if
reconnecting with her own body (the body of a goddess), she embraces a form of creative
expression not available to her earlier. Ambai provides a fresh way of thinking about
Sita, through the prism of middle age.
Ambai rewrites not only the story of Sita, but also the portrayal of Hindu
asceticism in the forest. In the conversation between Sita and Ravana, Sita talks of
imprisonment in the body, articulating the view that one goes to the forest to burn off
desires and attachment to pleasures. Instead of instructing Sita to isolate herself and burn
off desires, however, Ravana urges her to study music. In Ambai’s forest, Sita does
renounce her previous status as a princess and submit herself to the teachings of a guru.
Her focus, however, is not traditional yoga but mastering the vina. Rather than mortify
the body, she uses it to express herself through music. Distance from everyday worldly
affairs of the city allows a person in the forest the opportunity to shape one’s own life,
after a lifetime of attending constantly to the needs of others, according to Ambai.
Chalam’s Use of Language
Like Kumudini Ambai, Gudipati Venkata Chalam (1894-1979) contemporizes the
situations that Sita experiences, but he also gives Sita new words to speak. Chalam, a
skilled writer of Telugu prose whose originality and flair was conceded even by those
who found his advocacy of women’s social and sexual freedom shocking, wrote a
number of novels as well as plays, short stories, poetry, and memoirs. His work proved
so compelling that “quite a few Telugu feminist writers today trace their direct line of
descent from him.”17 Because the people in his writings speak in idiomatic and
colloquial dialogue, rather than stilted, but prestigious, Telugu literary prose, his
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characters seem to leap across the centuries into the present. Chalam’s dialogue is
particularly gripping in “Sita Enters the Fire” (Agni Pravesham), a brief piece written ca.
1935.18 In it, Chalam imagines a conversation between Rama and Sita as they meet for
the first time since her imprisonment in Lanka. When they begin to speak, Sita expresses
her joy at seeing her husband again but by the end, Sita has become so disillusioned that
she throws herself into Ravana’s funeral pyre. In contemporizing Sita, Chalam gives her
words that free her from the constraining semantics of dharmashastra.
Many critics have objected to Sita’s acquiescence when Rama mistreated her. For
example, Bina Agarwal’s English poem “Sita Speak,” which appeared in Indian Express,
refers to several key moments at which Sita remained mute, and then asks “[H]ow did
they silence you?”19 Such questions appear in regional language writing as well as in
English. For example, each stanza in award-winning Kannada writer Vijaya Dabbe’s
poem ends with “Sita, why didn’t you speak?”20 Yet back in 1924, Chalam had already
furnished Sita with words that enabled her to contest Rama’s patriarchal arguments.
In “Sita Enters the Fire,” an example of such terminology appears in a rapid-fire
set of exchanges prompted by Rama’s refusal to accept Sita back because some of his
citizens suspect her sexual purity because she lived within the precincts of Ravana’s
household. Sita, who abandoned the comforts of the palace to accompany Rama into
exile, asks him to renounce his kingdom so he need not conform to such public opinion.
Their exchange rests upon a tug of war over “rights” (hakku, plural hakkulu):
Ramu: My dharma is to be king. And it is my hakku.
Sita: You have dharma and hakkulu. But what about me? You have the hakku to
claim me and to reject me. Why don’t you give up your hakku for my good?
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Ramu: What? Forfeit my hakku for a woman?21
Hakku is a Telugu transliteration of the Arabic word haq. In Telugu, the term came into
prominence in twentieth-century discourse about democracy. Just as in Arabic, where
one finds the term in compounds such as haqqu ‘n-nas for “rights of man,” in Telugu
hakku appears often in phrases such prathamika hakkulu, “fundamental rights,” and paura
hakkulu, “civil rights.”22 Chalam uses the term to free Sita from the fixed semantics of
the discourse of dharma, thus providing her with the linguistic ammunition she needs to
respond to Rama’s mistreatment of her.
In a subsequent exchange, the term yantram (machine) enables Sita to critique
treatment of women as sexual objects rather than full human beings. When Sita demands
to know why Rama bothered to marry a wife at all, he responds that he took a wife to
continue his family lineage. Sita fires back, “So all I am is a yantram to produce children
for you? Now you think that this yantram is ruined, so you’ll get a new one.”23 Valmiki
may not have given Sita words to protest objectification of women through patriarchal
control over their sexuality, but Chalam does. His play shows her articulating relations
between men and women in new ways. Chalam’s pioneering writings helped galvanize a
set of female writers who followed, articulating their experiences as women in effective
and compelling Telugu language.
SITA’S FOILS
Short story writers also present Sita in a new light by examining her relationships
with Surpanakha and Ahalya, two women associated with sexual transgression in
authoritative Ramkathas. In Valmiki and Tulsidas, for example, Surpanakha appears as
the quintessential female temptress, doubly othered as both woman and demoness, while
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Ahalya involves herself in adultery with Indra, who visits her disguised as her husband.
In contrast, Sita is said to be the epitome of a dutiful and self-sacrificing wife. Yet the
four short stories analyzed below depict bonds of affection and mutual understanding
between Surpanakha and Sita or Sita and Ahalya. Some women’s Ramkatha songs depict
a solidarity between women not found in male-authored versions. For example, a Telugu
women’s song depicts Sita and Kausalya uniting to curb Rama’s arrogance, while another
portrays the wives of Rama’s brothers threatening to leave with Sita if Rama banishes her
to the forest.24 Solidarity among women in the household is one thing, but solidarity
between Sita and stigmatized characters is another, and entails complex consequences.
Bharati’s Tale of Reversals
Scholars of Tamil literature deem C. Subrahmaniya Bharati (1882-1921) the
greatest Tamil poet of the twentieth century. Over the course of his short life, Bharati
served as court poet for a zamindar, high school teacher, journalist, and translator. In
addition, he pioneered the use and design of political cartoons as editor of the Tamil
weekly, India. An assembly of poets bestowed upon him the title by which he is
commonly known, "Bharati" (a Tamil name for Goddess Sarasvati), in recognition of his
literary talent. His notoriety in fighting colonial rule led to nearly a decade’s exile in
Pondicheri after the British government cracked down on his “seditious” writings.
During exile, he wrote many innovative plays and short stories, among them his unique
treatment of Rama’s story, titled “Horns of the Horse.”25
“Horns of the Horse” appropriates the narrative format of an animal fable, depicts
Surpanakha as an ally of Sita, and reverses standard expectations about gender. Bharati
designed the story for a collection that he envisioned as an updated version of an ancient
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anthology of Sanskrit animal fables. 26 Although “Horns of the Horse” bears some
generic markers of didactic fables that provide an etiology for the appearance of a certain
animal, satire is its primary motivation. For example, instead of explaining how horses
got horns, the story recounts how horses lost their horns. Similarly, in the fable’s frame
story, which explains how the story came to be told, the narrator is identified as Pandit
Crooked Face, a name in Tamil that suggests doubt about the narrator’s unreliability.27
Most central to Bharati’s satire, however, is turning familiar events on their heads
and reversing dichotomies. For example, most of the major roles in the plot are reversed.
Rama tries to usurp the crown from Dasaratha, flees to Mithila when his father drives him
and Lakshmana from the kingdom, and then Rama abducts Sita to the Dandaka Forest.
When Surpanakha Devi, ruler of the region learns Rama is harassing the local forest
people, she commands her troops to capture Rama and Lakshmana bring them to her
court. Gracious and compassionate, she cautions them never to perform such actions
again, then allows them to stay as her guests. Sita then draws her aside and reveals she
has been abducted, asking to be returned to her father’s house. Sympathetic Surpanakha
sends her to nearby Lanka, so her brother (Ravana) can arrange an escort for her back to
Mithila. Thus, Bharati portrays Surpanakha as saving Sita from Rama’s clutches.
“Horns of a Horse” forcefully satirizes the peculiar logic of stereotypes about
romantic love through Bharati’s acutely depicted portrayal of the famous mutilation
scene. While authoritative tellings of Ramkatha portray Lakshmana disfiguring
Surpanakha at Rama’s command, Bharati depicts Surpanakha disfiguring Lakshmana
and, thus, mocks gendered notions of male prowess and female sexual attraction. The
mutilation results when Surpanakha tells the two princes that she has sent Sita to Lanka.
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Hot-headed Lakshmana rudely reprimands Surpanakha and, affronted, she slashes off
Lakshmana’s ears and toes with her fruit-knife. Bharati describes Rama as “[i]nfatuated
by her heroic act.” Rama interprets Surpanakha’s act as courageous, is filled with desire,
and asks her to marry him. When Rama demonstrated his prowess with Siva’s bow, he
won Sita as bride; here Surpanakha demonstrates her prowess with a fruit-knife and
Rama wants her as a bride. The scene prompts the reader to consider why one should fall
in love with someone because he or she performed a violent act? By reversing gendered
expectations, Bharathi makes visible the “macho” assumptions that drive the construction
of Sita and Rama as the perfect couple. The satire lampoons the normative heroic
“script” with its gendered expectations about capability with weapons and sexual
attraction. Long before feminist writers began critiquing constructions of gender through
portrayal of violence and sex, Bharati highlighted the process in this story.
Ranganayakamma’s Marxist Interpretation
The portrayal of a bond between Sita and Surpanakha appears as a theme in
several Telugu short stories, among them one by Muppala Ranganayakamma (1939-).
Among modern Telugu writers who have focused upon Ramkatha, perhaps none is as
famous as this public intellectual noted for her Marxist feminist critiques of society. She
has written 15 novels, more than 70 stories, and many essays dealing with gender
equality and women’s role in the family. Most relevant to Ramkatha is her three-volume
Telugu critique-cum-narrative of Valmiki’s Ramayana titled Ramayana, the Poisonous
Tree. It includes both her own sarcastic retelling of many Ramkatha incidents, and
extensive analysis and socio-political commentary. 28 This lengthy work, which has been
reprinted multiple times since volume one first appeared in 1974 argues that Valmiki’s
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Ramayana functions to justify a set of values that oppress women and lower classes.
Unlike the other six writers analyzed here, Ranganayakamma’s first priority is didactic
rather than literary; her main goal is to demonstrate that Valmiki’s text validates
patriarchal economic and social oppression.
Ranganayakamma’s earliest writing based on Ramkatha characters is a short story
titled “It Happened Just Like This,” her interpretation of the mutilation of Surpanakha.29
Even Ranganayakamma has conceded that, as a work of art, the story contains flaws,
including lack of conciseness.30 Yet, the short story has a special role in Telugu literary
history, because writing the story began the process of eventually completing her threevolume work. As did Bharati in “Horns of a Horse,” Ranganayakamma’s story depicts
Surpanakha as sympathetic to Sita and misled by Rama.31
Ranganayakamma depicts the conflict between Surpanakha and Rama as one
between forest-dwellers and city-dwellers. Surpanakha has chosen to live in the forest,
even though her brother would have married her to a mighty army general, because she
prefers the peace and quiet of the woods to the pomp and finery of the city. In contrast,
Rama expects her to sympathize when he complains that he was exiled and must endure
the hardships of forest life, when he wishes he could live in luxury at the palace. Despite
their differences, Surpanakha perceives that he finds himself captivated by her, and she
feels deeply attracted to him. With great sincerity, she confesses love for him but he tells
her that he cannot return her affection because of his “eka patni vrata” (one-wife vow).
In an example of Ranganayakamma’s humor, she has Surpanakha ask anxiously, “Is that
some fatal disease that prevents you from loving women?” (This remark turns out to be
wryly prescient, since he later mutilates Surpanakha and banishes his wife.) When Rama
17
boasts that his citizens admire him undertaking such a difficult vow, Surpanakha suspects
he cares too much about his public image for his own good.
Both Surpanakha’s doubts about Rama and her admiration for Sita grow. In
addition to being struck by Sita’s beauty, Surpanakha also admires how diligently she
performs her housework and praises her toil, in keeping with Ranganayakamma’s
Marxist stance. Surpanakha proposes to Rama that she befriend Sita and help out around
the house so that eventually Sita will let her become a co-wife, but Rama rejects the plan
because it might weaken his control over Sita. Then Surpanakha then offers him her love
outside of marriage and Rama weighs the advantages but decides that a mistress could
damage his reputation and declines the offer.
The end of Ranganayakamma’s story foreshadows what Sita will soon learn: that
Rama is in thrall to public opinion. When Surpanakha asks whether she was wrong in
thinking that Rama felt desire for her, Rama (who is bound to tell the truth) admits to
deep attraction but blames his vow for his inaction and offers Lakshmana to her instead.
When Surpanakha appears to accept, Rama projects his resentment, jealousy, and sexual
frustration onto her by commanding Lakshmana to mutilate her because her “loose
morals” pose a danger to society. Lakshmana does so.
In terrible pain, Surpanakha warns him that everyone who sees her face will read
his true character there: her scarred face bears testimony to his cruelty. As the story ends,
she hears forest sages singing praise of Rama, suggesting that while public Rama may
seem dutiful and praiseworthy, private Rama displays jealousy, desire, and cruelty toward
women. Both Surpanakha and Sita see Rama as valuing his public image more than
compassionate deeds.
18
Ranganayakamma tells Ramkatha in a way that foregrounds the values of the
forest and the similarities between Rama’s treatment of the two women who love him.
While Ravana, his army generals, and Rama prefer the luxuries of urban life, Surpanakha
appreciates the simple living and straightforward speech of the forest. Ranganayakamma
contrasts that ethos with city values, characterized by material luxury and social
conformity. She portrays the forest as a place where both Surpanakha and Sita could
have been happy if not for Rama. Rama denigrated Surpanakha’s forest kingdom and
banished Sita to the forest when city folk refused to accept the fact that she was pure.
Thus, Sita’s character is vindicated by Surpanakha’s admiration, which contrasts starkly
with Rama’s later rejection of Sita. The bond between the two women solidifies around
their rejection of Rama’s values and over-concern with his public image.
Surpanakhas Everywhere, Says Kavanasarma
Among all the writers examined here, Kandula Varaha Narasimha Sarma (1939-)
has made the most extensive use of contemporizing the characters. A retired professor of
civil engineering who writes under the nom de plume of “Kavanasarma,” he has won
recognition for the humor and satire in his short stories and novels. His 1884 Telugu
short story written titled “Surpanakha’s Sorrow” could be mistaken for a piece of social
realism: its details about business corruption and legal scandals sound as if they were
right out of today’s headlines.32 Yet the fact that the characters’s names and plot echo
Ramkatha so closely reveals its Ramkatha subtext. Kavanasarma’s portrayal of the
suffering that Surpanakha and Sita experience as a result of Rama’s “macho” attitudes
functions as a commentary on sexist attitudes in today’s society.
19
According to Kavanasarma, both Surpanakha and Sita suffer as a result of the
conflict between Rama and Ravana. In the modern Telugu author’s telling, unlike in the
authoritative ones however, the competition between the two men plays itself out in the
realm of business, rather than kingship. Ravanarao, who owns a long-established business
in town, resents the efforts of newcomer Ramaraju to muscle his way into Ravanarao’s
market niche.33 After gaining proof of Ramaraju’s crooked transactions, Ravanarao
reports the irregularities to the income tax office but Ramaraju’s uncle, who has political
clout, gets the court to dismiss the case. Still rumors begin circulating about Ramaraju’s
corruption, so he puts distance between himself and his business affairs by building and
moving to a hermitage at the edge of town.
The forest provides the backdrop against which the two men play out their anger
towards each other by abusing women. Ravanarao vows to take revenge on Ramaraju for
evading legal punishment, so he disguises himself as a holy man and comes to dwell in
Ramaraju’s forest. As soon as Rama leaves on an errand, the holy man abducts Sita.34
When Ramaraju discovers what has transpired, he worries not about his abducted wife’s
safety but that “people might laugh at him for being so effeminate and doing nothing
while his enemy had a good time with his wife.” Ramaraju decides to retaliate by
mistreating Ravanarao’s sister for, “[o]nly then would his manliness have any value.”
Ramaraju now invites her to visit him. When she arrives, he locks her inside the house,
has his brother mutilate her, and then sends her to her brother. Ravanarao files a
complaint with the police and gets Ramaraju arrested, but Ramaraju is acquitted.
The climax of Kavanasarma’s story comes when Surpanakha perceives a larger
pattern emerging out of Sita’s experience and her own: men too cowardly settle their
20
own grievances man-to-man perpetrate violence upon each others’ women. Surpanakha
then applies her insight about patriarchal abuse of women to current affairs:
When Harijans revolt, unable to face them, these heroic men invade
their homes when they are not around and the brave policemen, who
go ostensibly to protect the weak, violate their women. When the police
come and arrest the rogues, the rest of the rogues come, and instead
of doing anything either to the men who had tipped off the police or
to the police themselves, they rape the women of the town. Whoever
wants to settle an account with the other targets only the women.
Here Surpanakha draws explicit parallels between Lakshmana’s treatment of her and
today’s atrocities where high caste men rape women. Laws exist to punish such crimes,
but the accused find ways to work the system and evade imprisonment. The story
portrays Surpanakha as coming to espouse feminist critique and depicts Surpanakha’s
assault not as an isolated event but as part of a systemic oppression of women.
“Surpanakha’s Sorrow” ends with a call for change: Supanakha asks God, who
created the world, to make it possible for women to conceive children without the
involvement of men or at least allow them to give birth to courageous men rather than
cowards who oppress women. One cannot dismiss Surpanakha’s words as just the anger
of a scorned woman, since Mandodari, Ravana’s faithful and devoted wife, confirms
Surpanakha’s analysis, saying: “That’s how it is, our life as women.” Surpanakha’s
sorrow is actually that of all women who experience sexual violence at the hands of men.
Kavanasarma shows that an ancient story still expresses truths about women’s situation
today, a situation shared by both Sita and Surpanakha.
21
Pudumaippittan on Ahalya’s Fury about Sita
As his chosen penname, Pudumaippittan [“one who is mad for newness”]
indicates, C. Viruttachalam (1906-1948) found modern literary forms fascinating.
Although he worked in a number of capacities during his life, including as a newspaper
editor and screen writer, and experimented with many forms of prose, he earned his
reputation as Tamil’s pre-eminent modern writer primarily for his short stories. Perhaps
the most incisive, demanding, and frank interrogation of Ahalya’s tale in modern prose,
his “Deliverance from the Curse” appeared in print in 1943.35 Connoisseurs of modern
Tamil view it as a landmark in modern retellings of puranic tales.
In virtually all pre-twentieth century treatments of Ahalya, the tale functioned
rhetorically as proof that Rama brought deliverance to those in need. Her husband,
Gautama, had cursed her to turn to stone when he learned she had sexual relations with
Indra disguised as Gautama. Rama’s liberation of Ahalya, rather than the details of
Ahalya’s life, justified the story’s inclusion in various Ramayanas. For example, Valmiki
as well as Kampan, the celebrated twelfth-century Tamil poet whom Pudumaippittan
admired deeply, focused upon how Rama removal of Ahalya’s curse and his
compassionate treatment of her, won her devotion.
The taunting disclaimer that preceded Pudumaippittan’s piece, however, indicated
his self-consciousness about diverging from earlier treatments: “For those acquainted
with the Ramayana, this story might be incomprehensible; unpalatable, too. I am not
concerned with that.” Indeed, Rama’s liberation of Ahalya occupied only a small part of
“Deliverance.” The remainder responded to two questions presented as inseparable.
22
First, could Ahalya and her husband Gotama simply pick up where they’d left off, after
such a traumatic event and years of silence between them? Second, how would Ahalya,
who suffered greatly from her husband’s angry curse, respond when she learned that
Rama had Sita submit to a fire ordeal? Ultimately, a story that ostensibly concerned the
relationship between Ahalya and Gautama also implicated Rama’s treatment of Sita.
“Deliverance” is filled with remorse and its consequences. After Ahalya’s
lithification, Gautama realized that his curse, which resulted from his lack of self-control,
dehumanized both Ahalya and him. As soon as Ahalya was revived, Gautama’s love for
her motivated him to develop a philosophical stance that freed Ahalya of blame. Since
Indra appeared before Ahalya in disguise, Gautama reasoned, she violated wifely dharma
without the intent to do so, so he determined that she was blameless. Instead, Gautama
judged himself in error for cursing her and plunged into a whirlpool of self-recrimination.
The curse turned back on the man who uttered it, filling him with regret.
Ahalya too found it difficult to break free of the curse. She still loved her
husband, but could not rid herself of fear that she might unwittingly err again. Because
she worried that she might be tricked another time, she began to view those around her as
potential Indras. She found herself constantly on the alert and filled with fear. The
natural affection that she once expressed so easily now disappeared. “Before she uttered
anything, she repeated it like a lesson, a thousand times in her mind, examined each
word, from all perspectives, to make sure it was the right one. . . . The very business of
living became a hellish torment.” Only with Sita, wife of her liberator, did Ahalya feel at
ease. Ahalya, too terrified of scorn to mix with other women, spent hours in Sita’s
23
company while Rama and Gautama conversed about dharma. Naturally, Ahalya felt
bereft when the royal couple left for forest exile, and longed for their return.
When Sita came to visit after the exile, Ahalya was shocked to hear that after her
capture, suffering, and rescue, Rama had her enter the fire to prove her chastity. When
Pudumaippittan says that “Kannagi’s frenzy leaping through her mind,” he links three
women mistreated by their husbands: Ahalya, Sita, and Kannagi. Heroine of the fifthcentury Tamil epic Cilappatikaram, Kannagi had always been a faithful wife, quietly
loyal to her spouse even when he left her for a courtesan and returned home penniless.
Kannagi welcomed him and gave him her gold anklet so he could go sell it to support
them. When he went to the city to sell it, the king of Madurai wrongly executed him for
the theft of a gold anklet stolen by another man. The news of his death filled Kannagi
with rage, transforming her into an avenging goddess. She cursed the king and his city,
and burned it to the ground in punishment. By comparing Ahalya’s mind to that of
Kannagi, Pudumaippittan suggests the depth of Ahalya’s anger towards Rama for
punishing Sita for Ravana’s misdeed.
Pudumaippittan indicates how deeply Ahalya felt her own self tied up with Sita in
a single simple sentence: “One law for Ahalya, quite another for Rama?” In other
words, could Rama really be compassionate if he considered his wife tainted and allowed
her to enter the fire, even if he forgave Ahalya’s transgression? Indeed, Ahalya now
doubts that she has been freed from her curse at all. If Sita, who was chaste, had to prove
herself through a fire ordeal, what did that imply her, who had committed adultery with
Indra? Ahalya interprets Rama’s treatment of Sita as his personal betrayal of her,
24
wondering whether he made “[a] judgment which was equal to the curse that had poured
out from Gautama?” She became overwhelmed with despair.
Gautama tried to comfort her and, thinking that having a child would help her to
find some purpose in life, he entered their cottage as Ahalya was drifting to sleep. In her
mind’s eye, Indra had returned and was re-enacting the same deed: the one she had tried
so hard to forget. Sita’s tale had brought to mind her past trauma, compelling her to
experience it and its terrible result again and again, as if suffering from what today is
called post-traumatic repetition syndrome. Even though the real Gautama now entered
her, rather than Indra, she had internalized Rama’s condemnation of Sita so entirely that
at that moment Ahalya turned back into stone.36
In “Deliverance,” Pudumaippittan displaces his criticism of Rama’s treatment of
Sita so that it surfaces less directly through a telling of Ahalya’s story. “Deliverance”
suggests that Gautama’s curse does not end when Rama liberates her from her stony
state. Indeed, Gautama and Ahalya never regain the easy trust that characterized their
early married years. But Pudumaippittan goes even further, because by portraying
Ahalya’s return to stone, he suggests that Rama is hypocritical in exonerating Ahalya but
not Sita. Thus, Rama’s treatment of Sita functions as the operative force in the latter part
of the story, emphasizing what Sita and Ahalya both share.
CONCLUSIONS
In these stories, Ramkatha’s female characters, especially Sita, are not static and
unchanging icons. Instead, because they are contextualized in modern narratives, they
come across as multi-faceted human beings. By contemporizing Sita, these Tamil and
25
Telugu writers take a figure often identified as an ideal for women and envision how she
would act if she encountered new challenges. All three writers make Sita a full-bodied
character, rather than an abstract exemplar. Readers learn to care about this Sita, watch
her struggle and grow, and view her as a complex woman with choices in her life, rather
than a subservient female by her husband’s side. Kumudini, Ambai, and Chalam depict
Sita in a narrative, rather than iconic, frame.
Furthermore, Sita is portrayed in relationship rather than in isolation. Modern
Tamil and Telugu writers have astutely analyzed Sita’s relationship to Surpanakha and
Ahalya. They take the notion of women’s experience seriously, suggesting bonds of
sympathy between Sita and Surpanakha, a woman usually demonized and scorned, as
well as between Sita and Ahalya, a woman cursed and stigmatized. In their own distinct
ways, Bharathi, Ranganayakamma, and Kavanasarma portray women discovering that, in
relation to men, they share experiences of humiliation.
In turn, Pudumaippittan never portrays Sita as criticizing her husband for his
attitude towards women, but the story does use Ahalya’s anger to place that criticism into
the mouth of Ahalya. Ahalya’s criticism of Rama can be ignored as words of a “fallen”
woman, but nonetheless, it is there, plain and clear. Examining Sita’s relationships with
other women in the short stories also breaks down dichotomies between supposedly
“good” women like Sita and supposedly “bad” women like Surpanakha and Ahalya.
Most of the authors in this essay have won recognition as superb writers.
Historians of literature rank Bharati, Chalam, and Pudumaippittan among the giants of
modern Tamil and Telugu. Ambai and Kavanasarma have won multiple literary awards.
Kumudini has finally begun to receive the critical attention she deserves.37 These
26
outstanding writers offer depictions of characters that differ significantly from those
found in the authoritative tellings of Valmiki, Kamban, or Tulsidas. Recognizing the
originality and artfulness of such stories is part of appreciating the creativity of Indian
literature.
Hindutva proponents have dismissed oppositional tellings of Ramkatha as the
work of those whom they define as “alienated” from their own Hindu culture by
immersion in Western ideas--secularists, Marxists, and others. Yet, Bharati mastered Old
Tamil and was rewriting Panchatantra, Pudumaippittan knew Kamban’s Iramavataram
intimately, Ambai wrote a research monograph on women in Tamil literature,
Kumudini’s knowledge of puranic literature was encyclopedic, and Chalam dwelled in a
Hindu ashram during the final years of his life. Even Ranganayakamma spent years
studying Valmiki with the meticulousness of a Ph.D., a depth of textual study unmatched
by most Hindutva ideologues. These writers of Ramkatha deserve respect. Furthermore,
we should expect to read many more short stories based on Ramkatha in the coming
decades.
We should, that is, unless it becomes impossible for writers to compose such
stories without risking their bodily safety. On January 2001, the publisher of the Telugu
weekly newspaper, Andhra Jyoti, published the first part of a serialized story titled
“Ravana Josyam" by D.R. Indra that local Hindutva proponents deemed offensive. They
threatened the publisher and attacked his office, after which the paper dropped the story
because of claims that it had wounded the feelings of some of their readers.38 In 2000 a
BJP member of the Lok Sabha ominously vowed that the Center would investigate
Ranganayakamma because the demand for her three-volume novel of her retelling of
27
Ramayana has meant that its is now going into its seventh edition. In Tamilnadu,
although the BJP has not historically wielded as much influence as in other parts of India,
Karunanidhi drew sharp criticism when he declared solidarity with Ravana, saying that
“anyone who attacks Ravana attacks me.” These seemingly minor events are part of a
nation-wide pattern of hostility to oppositional tellings of Ramkatha. Yet one cannot help
asking whether BJP protests against such stories stem from a bid for publicity, rather than
from serious literary assessment.
Furthermore, Hindutva attacks send a message to authors that writing about
Ramkatha in a serious and probing way is unacceptable. In such cases one has to ask
oneself how a group that claims to be “protecting” Hindu culture can really be doing so,
if its proponents stifle one of India’s most generative narrative resources. The
scholarship on ancient Ramayanas, philosophical Ramayanas, regional Ramayanas,
bhakti Ramayanas, Ramayana plays, oral Ramayanas, and other kinds of Ramayanas in
the past indicates that Ramkatha has been a fluid and ever-renewing set of narratives.
Unless the Ramayana tradition is stifled or fossilized, writers will continue to compose
their stories of Ramkatha long into the future. We should welcome that creativity and see
it as a sign of narrative health, and also social health. The short stories analyzed here,
and many others like them, provide evidence that writers continue to turn to Ramkatha
for inspiration, characters, settings – a whole narrative world. Such stories provide
evidence for those who wish to contest the idea that Hindutva proponents have the
exclusive right to define what Ramkatha means today.
28
1
Pradip Kumar Datta, “VHP’s Ram: The Hindutva Movement in Ayodhya,” in Hindus
and Others: The Question of Identity in India Today (New Delhi: Viking, 1993), pp.
46-73.
2
Anuradha Kapur, “Deity to Crusader: The Changing Iconography of Ram,” in Ibid,
pp. 74-109.
3
See Phyllis Herman, “Sita in the Kitchen: The Pativrata and Ramarajya,” Manushi, no.
120, pp. 5-11, and “Siting the Power of the Goddess: Sita’s Kitchen Shrines in Modern
India,”Journal of Vaishnava Studies, 12:2 (Spring 204), pp. 63-75. Anand Patwardhan’s
film Ram Ke Nam [In the Name of God] includes interviews with members of the
Bajrang Dal (the name of the organization means “Hanuman’s Army”).
4
See V. Raghavan, ed. The Ramayana Tradition in Asia (New Delhi: Sahitya
Akademi,1989); Joyce Burkhalter Flueckiger and Laurie J. Sears, Boundaries of the Text:
Epic Performances in South and Southeast Asia (Ann Arbor: Michigan Papers on South
and Southeast Asia, University of Michigan, 1991); Paula Richman, ed., Many
Ramayanas: The Diversity of a Narrative Tradition (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1991 and New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1992); Richman, ed., Questioning
Ramayanas, A South Asian Tradition (Berkeley: University of California Press and New
Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2000); for an overview of the diversity of Sanskrit texts,
texts in regional languages, and folk traditions.
5
Romila Thapar, “The Ramayana Syndrome,” Seminar, no 353 (January 1989), p. 128.
6
Tamil and Telugu work especially well as case studies. First, their distinctive Ramkatha
texts deserve particular attention because, until the linguistic reorganization of Indian
states, both Tamil and Telugu were spoken widely in Madras. That pattern continues
29
today, albeit to a much lesser extent. Many whose mother tongue is Tamil live in
Hyderabad (Andhra Pradesh), while a large number of Telugu speakers live throughout
Tamilnadu, in places ranging from Chennai and Coimbatore to Tanjore district.
Furthermore, both Tamil and Telugu writers experienced an anti-Brahmin movement in
the early 20th century.
7
A.K. Ramanujan, “Two Realms of Kannada Folklore,” in Another Harmony: New
Essays on the Folklore of India, ed., Stuart H. Blackburn and Ramanujan (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1986), p. 63.
8
Philip Lutgendorf., The Life of a Text: Performing the Ramcaritmanas of Tulsidas
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991, p. 213.
9
Kathleen Erndl, “The Mutilation of Surpanakha,” in Richman, ed. Many Ramayanas,
pp. 67-88.
10
That task is beyond the scope of this paper but for stories in Malayalam and Kannada
see Telling Ramayanas in Modern South India (Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
2005).
11
Most authoritative tellings present Sita primarily in ways that relate to the glorification
of Rama and or Hanuman or lead up to the battle with Ravana. For example, little
information is given in Valmiki or Tulsidas about Sita’s childhood. In contrast, women’s
tellings such as the Bengali one by Chandrabati do include extensive material on Sita’s
birth. See Nabaneeta Dev Sen, “Rewirting the Ramayana: Chandrabati and Molla,” in
Crossing Boundaries (Hyderabad: Orient Longman, 1997), pp. 162-177. Folksongs also
tell of Sita’s youth. For example, see the discussion of a Kannada folktale in which Sita
30
was born with Ravana sneezed in A.K. Ramanujan, “Three Hundred Ramayanas,” in
Many Ramayanas, 35-37.
12
“Cita Piraattiyin Kataitankal” first appeared in Ananta Vigatan 9:36 (9 September
1934), pp. 65-73 and was later reprinted with similar stories about Damayantii and
Hidimaa’s grandmother in the section called "Mail from the Inner Palace" in Cillaraic
Cankatikal, Limitet (Tricchi: Natecan Books Limited, 1948). At publication, it sold for
one rupee.
13
wife of Rsyasrnga
14
Ambai translated “Nanduvin Pirantanal” [Nandu’s Birthday] for a woman’s magazine
in the 1990s.
15
Ampai [C.S. Lakshmi], Kaattil Oru Maan [In the Forest, A Deer] (Nagercoil:
Kalachuvadu, 2000]. The translations cited here were done by Lakshmi Holmstrom for
Telling Ramayanas in South India
16
In South India, Ravana is known as a master musician on the vina. The Rudravinai is
closely connected with Shiva and Parvati and Ravana is also particularly well-known in
the south as a devotee of Shiva.
17
Alladi Uma and M Sridhar, ed. and trans. Ayoni and Other Stories (New Delhi:
Katha, 2001), p.13.
18
“Sita Agnipravesam” first appeared in Savitri: Pauranika Natikalu [Savitri: Plays from
the Puranas] (n.p.: Panduranga Press, 1924)and was reprinted by Vijayawada: Aruna
Publishing House, 1993.
31
19
The poem first appeared in Indian Express, 17 November 1985. It later became the
basis of skits presented by activists combating the oppression of women and was
reprinted in Questioning Ramayanas, p. 239-240.
20
Vijaya Dabbe, Iti Geetike (Manasa Gangotri: Kuvempu Institute of Kannada Studies,
1996), pp. 51. Translated into English as “The Questions Return” by Pratibha
Nandakumar and Shashi Deshpande for Telling Ramayanas in Modern South India.
21
22
Another meaning of the term is “truth.”
I am indebted to Velcheru Narayana Rao for the information about hakku in this
paragraph.
23
Nîvu dharmânni jaripe yantram. Nenu pillalni kaneyantram.
24
See Narayana Rao, “A Ramayana of Their Own,” p. 134, note 1, in which he lists the
collections of women’s songs on which his paper is based.
25
“Kutirai Kompu” appeared in Paratiyar Kataikal [Stories of Bharathi] Madras:
Poompukar Press, 1977, pp. 285-292, was reprinted from Kataikkottu [Collected Stories],
(Madras: Parati Piracuralayam, 1938). My translation of the story appeared in “Ram as
Abductor: Subrahmaniya Bharati’s Ramayan,” Manushi: A Journal about Women and
Society, no. 116 (January-February 2000), pp. 15-18.
26
Bharati named his set of new fables Nava-tantra, a take-off on the classical Sanskrit
Pancha-tantra.
27
A straight story is a truthful one while a crooked story, like the crooked scepter of a
Tamil king, indicates departure from the proper manner of proceeding.
28
Muppala Ranganayakamma, Ramayanavisavrksam, 3 vols (Hyderabad: Sweet Home
Pub., 1974-6).
32
29
“Illage jaigimdi” appears as story 3 in volume one. For a summary of the contents of
all three volumes, see www.ranganyakamma.org/summary_of_vishavruksham.html.
30
I am grateful to Nasi Sankagiri for sharing his detailed views on this story. I also
benefited from the discussion at the Telugu Literary Society based in Detroit, which
discussed Ranganayakkamma’s three- volume novel at their meeting on 9 February 2002.
31
This is not a story that contemporizes the characters per se, since Ranganayakamma
identifies herself as a Marxist and sees the Ramayana as a narrative that reflects its
origins in a patriarchal and feudal period of history. Nonetheless, the author does indeed
re-envision the story through her Marxist framework, a recent ideological prism that
shapes the way in which she approaches every incident in her retelling. She locates
herself as differing in significant ways from both the Ramayana attributed to Valmiki and
from Viswanatha Satyanarayana’s conservative Telugu retelling called Ramayana
Kalpavrkasamu [Ramayana the Giving Tree]. To demonstrate her opposition to it, she
named her novel, as a rejoinder, Ramayana Visavrksam [Ramayana, the Poison Tree].
32
“Surpanakha Sokam” was first published in Andhra Sachitra Vara Patrika, 11 May
1984, and was reprinted in Kavanasrama Kathalu (Visakhapatnam: RK Publications,
1995). Alladi Uma and M. Sridhar translated the story into English in Ayoni and Other
Stories, pp. 131-138
33
“Rao” is a widely found caste suffix among Telugu Brahmins; Ravana was a Brahmin
demon. Ramaraju means “Lord Rama,” and is a non-Brahman name in Andhra.
34
It is beyond the scope of this paper to recount all the clever in-jokes found in this
concise but humorous take-off on the story of Surpanakha, but the conceptualization of
33
the holy man’s ten heads is especially clever. His name is “the swami with 10 heads,” a
name he earned as a playback singer because he had the ability to imitate the singing
style of ten famous vocalists.
35
“Sabaavimosanam” first appeared in the May issue of Kalaimakal. This translation is
based on the version in C. Virdhachalam, Pudumaippithan Kathaikal, ed. A.R.
Venkatachalapathy (Nagercoil: Kalachuvadu Pathippagam, 2000), vol. 1, pp. 527-540.
The translation by Lakshmi Holmstrom appeared in Pudumaippittan (New Delhi: Katha,
2002), pp. 128-145. Pudumaippittan first wrote a brief story about her titled “Ahalayai,”
then rethought her character more deeply in “Deliverance from the Curse.”
36
The story continues onto to relate the final days of Gotama, but that topic is beyond the
scope of this paper.
37
Because most of Kumudini’s writings were published in magazines and other
periodicals, and because she did not write much after the 1940s, unfortunately her work
has been largely overlooked. More recently, attention has been paid to her deft use of
humor and her ability to break out of stereotypical portrayals of women and family life.
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I am grateful to Sreenivas Paruchuri for sharing with me his copy of the story and the
editorials about this story.
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