Love and Re-reading Myths

(This post has been writing itself in my head for quite some time now but was catalyzed by two events. A dear friend posted on her facebook wall her parental attempt to help her daughter to move and see beyond Prince Charming and happily-ever-after fairytale stories—a beautiful way to prepare girls for the harsh realities of modern life.  The second event was a powerful conversation with my mother on a Ram Jethmalani comment about Ram being a bad husband. I write this post with her blessings.

To all my readers: I am a deeply spiritual person and I know each mythological story has its own sacred meaning. I have no intention of demeaning that aspect of it. My attempt in this post is merely to explain that while myths have sacred meaning, they also have secular everyday implications. And that women need myths to empower their romantic lives and avoid the heartbreak that so often happens in our modern lives.)

Like a river flows surely to the sea
Darling so it goes
Some things are meant to be
Take my hand, take my whole life too
For I can't help falling in love with you
For I can't help falling in love with you

It is one of my favourite songs (whether the original Elvis Presley version or the later ones). You see all said and done, I am a die-hard romantic and when a guy sings “I can’t help falling in love” it fulfills the deepest of the girly desires that I, like other girls, grow up with.

But then, although I do enjoy a Euro-American man /men singing this song, I am after all a brown girl connected to life through brown myths.

 As I inch closer to 40 and reflect on the myths I have lived out in my life, I notice that I have not able to tease out a myth that empowers me completely as a woman (Yes, even in romance, one needs to love from the point of strength, not weakness). I notice a pattern in these myths and love stories. And I note the need to re-read them.

For example, if we examine the Sati-Shiva story, Sati is daughter from a powerful royal family who married a mysterious mountain man against her father’s wishes. Yeah, I know Shiva was the Great God and all that. But all said and done, she courted him and died for him, not vice versa. Read the story as a common Indian woman growing up with these myths.

When you fast forward to Parvati-Shiva love story, once again the beautiful princess has to undergo decades of hard penance to win her husband. Yes, this time her father is more than happy. But as a woman reader, I ask, for a change; it would have been nice to see the all-knowing Shiva come down and court her. After all, last time she killed herself for him.

Move to the colourful (ahem) stories of Krishna. He is a darned charmer of women’s hearts. And yes, every woman he made a move on felt deeply loved and cherished by him. And no, my intention is not to demand that Krishna be monogamous (I should point out that monogamy as a concept is amongst the few concepts that women have successfully invented to protect their turf). My intention is to state here that after the initial intense, overwhelming seduction, the Gopis, almost without exception lived a life of separation and extreme longing. Yeah, it did produce some lovely songs and poetry, but from an everyday woman’s point of view—it is not a married-happily-ever-after story, it is the worst kind of heartbreak story.

And then there is Shakuntala who is forgotten by her lover/husband. This is a woman who has a secret marriage even before she asked for her parents’ consent! Quite radical, na? But as a woman I want to ask, why is it that Sage Durvasa went to visit Shakuntala’s home? Why couldn’t he have gone to Dushyant’s place? After all, he was also lovelorn. Durvasa could have cursed Dushyant that Shakuntala would forget him until he showed her his ring. It would have been fun watching Dushyant tremble as Shakuntala’s parents start matchmaking for her—suitors in tow, horoscopes galore, Shakuntala prettily wondering which man to pick and whom to reject! Instead, we have a story where our country’s namesake Bharat is born and brought up in wilderness to a supposedly single unwed mother. Our country’s name is embedded in the pathos of a woman who has been abandoned! What could be more tragic than that! 

But if there is one woman character who seems to empower us at least somewhat, then strangely it is Sita in Ramayan, although as a romantic fairytale story, it still falls short. Feminist readers may shudder reading this—but have patience. Listen me out. In this story, the magical girl is born to a perfect family. Note she is born parthenogenetically from the Earth, her lineage is completely maternal.  She is in a sense, immaculately conceived! Now, this girl simply stays put at her parents’ house while Rama does the hard work of defending the ceremonies of the sages from the demons to win the reward of reaching her place and seeing her for the first time. He then has to lift the bow and string it to win her hand. Note, he is doing the hard work! He marries with due honour and brings her home with respect.  Un perfecto so far!

When the time comes for Rama to fulfill the promise his dad made, Maryada Purushottam Ram in his fulfillment of duty never abandons his wife. She walks with him, side-by-side and fulfills the duty along with him as his companion. Note, no separation here! Of course, he asked her to stay back but that was more out of care for his wife (ahem, in this context, can I just say I don’t like Lakshmana very much)!

Then comes the kidnapping episode. At that point, the dutiful Rama performs his duty to his wife by waging a war against Lanka to retrieve her. And the entire Ramayan pivots around this dutiful action. Read it from a romantic woman’s point of view—the man is besotted with grief, has become depressed, searches helter-skelter for her, and raises a weird army to gallantly fight against a very powerful man to liberate a woman he deeply loves. Cool story!  

Now, read about Sita’s imprisonment. She is in the Kidnapper’s turf. The entire island belongs to him. He could have her anytime. For women, who are scared of being exploited, who suffer from constant fear of being abused, living out our lives almost as would-be-victims, read this section of Ramayana carefully (sorry have read only Valmiki Ramayan and Tulsi Ramcharitmanas, so basing it on that). Sita, in spite of being in the mouth of lust, effectively neutralizes Ravana’s advances. Yeah, there were erstwhile curses-in action and she has the magic of mantras—but whatever, to me she is the powerful symbol of resistance even when all is lost. She is not raped, period!

Then Rama kills Ravana and extricates her. And yes, there is the agnipareeksha (purity test). And yes, there are versions around what it was all about and controversy abound. I am not keen on going through the controversy because my point in this post is not politics of women’s rights, but how the love story pans out. So she goes through that test and is “reunited” with her man.

They return home and at a certain point she conceives. A miraculous moment, na! She is with child of the man she loves! And then comes the most painful turn in this story. The contents of a washerman’s irritated conversation with his wife reach Rama’s ears and he decides to abdicate Sita. Please note—I am not here busy talking about the dharma of a king/administrator. That is the not the point of the post. I am merely recounting the story from the perspective of a woman in love. That is all. So Rama abandons his pregnant wife and drops her in the forest. Now, if I was pregnant, and my hormones were going crazy and I feel fragile and need the father of my child to support me and share the delight of the child growing within me, this would be the most cruel thing that could happen in my life. Sita is not sent to her father’s home where she would have the comfort of known surroundings and familiar people who would shower her love; she is exiled to the forest. Yeah, yeah, she is dropped near an ashram—but seriously, why not in it, why not talk to the head of the ashram and ensure she is in comfort? Aaah—men would say, yaar, he knew the sage would take care of her. The unsaid things and ways to care that men love to fool themselves into believing!

Later when Rama comes to collect his now-grown-out-of-nappychange-and-become-cute-adorable kids who have been raised by single mother Sita, and the debate ensues again about her purity, she does not return to him. This time she returns to her mother and her only parent Earth—the woman dissolves into the Mother rejecting any hope, any desire for the male or for love in this world. This is to me is the most powerful renunciatory act that has been said or written of any woman in any brown mythological story. For a woman, or women who are a lot like the stereotypical woman, and live a lot through their emotions, to triumph those emotions is our magical moment, it is our liberation, our pathway to nirvana. [Note: I do not wish to essentialize women into certain pre-determined social categories, but I am surrounded by women who are ruled by an emotional heart, me including—so I tell the story for women like us. If you are not one, that is great—you have my heart-felt envy!]

And so women who crave happily-ever-after love stories, let me nudge you gently—sister, ahem, those stories don’t exist but so what—we love so that we can triumph over love itself!

[I beg forgiveness for writing this from a heterosexual perspective. Love happens in all hearts in all forms and I recognize it.]