Before Ramayana Hits Cinemas: The Novels That Gave Sita, Kaikeyi, Shurpanakha Their Own Voices
\n\nOn the eve of her wedding in Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s 'The Forest of Enchantments', Sita receives a single word of advice from her mother, Queen Sunaina: “Endure.” The scene appears nowhere in the Ramayana. Divakaruni invented it, then spent the rest of the novel showing her heroine working out when to obey that word and when to refuse it.
\n\nNitesh Tiwari’s 'Ramayana' opens in cinemas on 6 November, with Sai Pallavi as Sita, Lara Dutta as Kaikeyi and Rakul Preet Singh as Shurpanakha. All three women reach the screen carrying centuries of fixed reputation as the faithful wife, the scheming stepmother and the wanton demoness. Novelists have already handed each of them the narration and asked how the epic looks from where she stands.
\n\nDivakaruni’s 2019 novel keeps every event of the epic in place. Sita writes her own account on palm leaves, moving from exile through captivity in Lanka to a second exile. Divakaruni has called it the most challenging project of her life, and has said she wanted to free Sita from the rigid, revered mould that tradition had built around her.
\n\nThe Forest…
Original source: https://www.timesnownews.com/lifestyle
