An open letter to Sri Rama

[Guest guest]

Sri:

 

Poojya Sri Rama,

 

Please accept my pranams.

 

You know me very well as one among your countless

creations and I know very well that I am one of those

lowly creatures who is not even qualified to be known

as your devotee. You are Greatness unparalleled, but I

am a manda-buddhin who knows not what to think about,

how to talk and what to talk. It is my fervent wish

that this confession of mine would absolve me of any

apacharam that I will commit during the course of this

letter.

 

I am apprehensive of committing apacharam because in

this letter I am going to question the way you have

fashioned Rama avatharam. Don’t think that I am going

to raise the same old bogey of accusation on agni

pariksha. I for one am totally convinced that you

didn’t mean to demean or hurt your priya-bhAryaL in

having asked her to undergo agni-pariksha. I do

understand, just as you, that agni can do no harm to

Sita. This was well indicated twice in Sundhara

Khandam, when Sita invoked Agni deva not to harm

Hanuman when his tail was set on fire and when the

fire spread by Hanuman in Lanka did not touch her. You

know very well, as we too came to know after reading

this khandam that Sita is one who can burn Agni

Himself. Knowing this very well, you asked for and

allowed agni-pariksha for Sita.

 

So the cause of my vishanam is not this. It is

something else. It is about why Sita had to suffer at

all – suffer the pangs of separation from you.

Remember she is one who we believe is inseparable from

you and lives forever in your heart which is her

permanent abode.

You too suffered, but we have been told of a previous

incident in which you as Vishnu incurred a curse from

a Rishi (I am unable to quote the name) when you

killed his wife with your Chakrayudha for having given

abhayam to the one who was the target of your

chakrayudha. As one untouched by curses and such other

things, you decided to use it as an alibi during Rama

avathara.

 

Tell me, in what way your dear better –half was drawn

into this? You may say that as your patni, she is also

bound to share the good and bad or whatever of that

avathara. But did it stop with just separation from

you? Didn’t she suffer more than you? What previous

karma (though unbinding) of hers can you quote to

account for the humiliation and danger she suffered to

her integrity and modesty, for the fear, for the

helplessness and for all those terrible emotions she

underwent in Ashoka vana?

 

I am asking the same questions that Sita asked. What

was the pApam she did in her previous births? What was

the dhosham she had as to suffer like that? O, is it

right to leave her among the demons, threatened by

Ravana? Is it right to leave her untended, unclean and

without AbhushaN – the one who is ever willing to

shower on us all the bounties? If you had willed you

could have immediately released her from her plight.

Is it because, as Sita herself had said, she committed

an apacharam to you? It is true that in order to take

a dig at you, when you refused to take her along

during vana vasa, she lamented that her father had her

married to you without knowing that you are a woman in

man’s garb(!) Hey Rama, did you take this accusation

seriously? Don’t you know that this is the last astra

that we, the womenfolk use whenever the husband

refuses to see our point of view. I have said like

this to my husband and he has not done any harm to me

in retribution. I am sure you too didn’t mind Sita’s

accusation at that time.

 

Then, why did you allow her to suffer? I know you

would come out with reasons such as making mankind

understand certain values of living, the lofty ideal

of sharanagathi, highlighting the Purushakara of

Piratti and the like. Let me remind you that you

succeeded in teaching these in other avatars too, but

without having to put your wife in such distress. In

fact you came to the world without your wife on 8 out

of 10 occasions (avatars). Even in Krishna avathara,

you didn’t make your wives suffer humiliation in the

hands of a demon like Ravana.

 

My question is why you made a script in the first

place that held your wife, our mAtha, in such a sorry

state of affairs. You have all the power to make a

story as you wish and a script as you like. You could

have made the story line for Sita differently.

Certainly if I were to be in your place and enjoyed

all the freedom to create a story line of my choice, I

would not have even in my dreams thought of the

terrible incidents to happen to my mother Sita. Hey

Rama, why couldn’t you think differently?

 

You have disappointed us in another way also. Rama

avatar is the only avatar in which you came to earth

with your dear wife and were all set to live a human

life like us throughout the period you were here. Why

did you spoil it by your own design, Rama? Why did you

rob us of the joy of thinking about you and Sita as

wonderful couple who came to live like us and lived

happily ever through your stay here?

 

I always compare you with the Sun and Sita with the

Moon and am fascinated to watch these celestial

objects in the sky. When Shukra came too close to the

Moon about one and a half ago and the crescent moon

seemed to greet Shukra who was in his brightest

splendor then, I imagined how our mother Sita is

benevolent, calm, cool and has a broad mind to allow

shukra to steal the show even while she was sailing in

all dignity.

 

But a fortnight later I was witness to your fury when

you seemed not to let shukra posses any glory as he

traveled past you. The sparkling shukra looked like a

mere dot on your face, so small and unimportant. At

that time I was really awe-struck by your power to

vanquish the ego of the asura-guru. But now thinking

about the deplorable incidents you assigned for Sita

to undergo, hey Rama, I am sorry to say that the dot

(of asura-guru) indeed looked like a blot on your

face. You could have handled the asura in Ramayana

differently, not necessarily by making your beloved

wife, our Jagan-mAtha a scapegoat! I don’t find fault

with you for any of the popularly known debatable

issues such as Vali vadam and agni-pariksha. But I do

fault you for having made our mAtha suffer ignominy

and indescribable distress. If you can conceive of

such worst scenario for your wife herself, where will

we all go? What difficulties have you decided for us?

Are you right in having scripted a tough scenario for

Sita? Tell me Rama, tell me.

 

Truly yours,

Jayasree Saranathan