THE FOREST OF ENCHANTMENTS BY CHITRA BANERJEE DIVAKUNDRI (2019)

About the Author: Chitra Banerjee was born in Kolkata and pursued her bachelor's degree from the University of Calcutta in 1976. In the same year, she moved to USA to pursue her master's degree from Wright State University, after which she got a PhD from the University of California, Berkley in 1985. Currently, she lives and teaches in Texas where she is the McDavid professor of Creative Writing at University of Houston Creative Writing Program.

Before starting the review, I should clarify that my knowledge of the Ramayana comes from 'Wisdom of Ramayana' by Chaitanya Charan, Lakshman by Toru Dutt, The Legend of Prince Rama anime movie, Siya Ke Ram (Star Plus) and Shrimad Ramayan (SET), along with some online research. I haven't read Valmiki's Ramayan, Tulsidas's Ramayan, Adhbut Ramayan or any regional variation directly, even though I acknowledge that Chitra Banerjee has carried out research to include elements from multiple iterations of Ramayana. In the author's note, Banerjee has mentioned that she has read 4 iterations of Ramayan to prepare for this book, including Valmiki's Ramayana, Adhbut Ramayana, Kamba Ramayana and Krittibasi Ramayana (Bengali Version). Given this context, I understand that I'm not qualified enough to critique the novel, but I'd still like to treat this review as an opinion piece.

I have always seen Ramayana as an epic didactic tale about gods in human bodies trying to uphold the virtues of duty and karma. What makes their tale interesting is the fact that gods in human guise are flawed individuals who make mistakes and deal with vulnerabilities, so I was really interested to explore Ramayana from Sita's perspective including her thoughts, vulnerabilities and courage. But what I ended up reading was an tale of victimisation as the narrative tries too hard to blend the ideals of contemporary feminism with the the teachings of an ancient epic. Sita's abduction, agni pariksha and her second vanvaas have been contentious points of debate in the epic as most obstacles in Sita's life emerge from the misogyny in the minds of society of that era (Treta Yug). And honestly, I really like how the narrative addressed these events in the epic through Sita's perspective. I also like how the novel explored Sita's relationship with the women in her life such as Sunaina, Urmilla, Kaushalya and Kaikayi. I like how Banerjee posed philosophical dilemma about love and duty to foreshadow the future events in Sita's life. I also like how it highlights the spiritual origins of Ram and Sita in early chapters (Ravan i later chapters), but the momentum of narrative falls flat as the story progresses.

The narrative drastically deteriorates when Sita reaches Lanka. At this point, everything I liked about this novel just disappeared and I was left with a generic story that flowed mechanically with bland narration. The book promises to explore the stories of women who are often relegated to the margins, including Kaikayi, Mandotari and Surpnakha. As mentioned before, while the novel does a decent job exploring the women in Ayodhya and Mithila from a nuanced perspective, I can't say the same for the women of Lanka. Sita's friendship with Sarama, Vibhishan's wife is intriguing, but Trijata, Surpnaka and Mandotari's stories felt underdeveloped. The story acknowledges that Trijata showed kindness to Sita during her agony, yet their dynamic is never properly explored. The consistent self-victimisation of Sita, particularly in early chapters for every small incident before the banishment is a strange narrative choice I couldn't understand very well. I acknowledge that the intention was to humanise Sita, particularly for the 21st century readers, but I think Banerjee could have used slight restraint in terms of exploring Sita's anger towards misogyny around her. Ramayana, from my perspective is about taking a firm stand against evil and navigating the thin line between upholding virtues of dharma and loving unconditionally without letting attachments with people and material objects cloud our judgement, but the novel ended up indulging in constant self-pity. Banerjee tries to explore these intricacies to a certain extent, but her approach just doesn't resonate with me. Maybe reading more literature on Ramayana and Sita will change my perspective , especially if I read the original texts. But for now, I'm a bit underwhelmed.

A mediocre exploration of Ramayana from Sita's perspective, I would like to give this story a rating of 2.5/5.