Transcending Sita by Vasantha Senanayake

Review by Rajiva Wijesinha

Given the continuous decline in both the role and the capacity of Members of Parliament that set in with the new electoral systems of the eighties, it was not surprising that Vasantha Senanayake would not last long in that position. His ideas with regard to the environment and foreign relations were beyond the concerns or the capacities of the ministers under whom he served, and despite the promise with which this President came in, it seems clear that nothing will move forward.

What to do then? As Tolstoy put it well over a century back. With family business running smoothly under those who had been in charge when he was politically engaged, and with travel both within Sri Lanka and abroad restricted, Vasantha turned to what had been an early love, writing. And after proving himself in newspaper columns, he turned to creative writing, novels in different genres

But what he concentrated on initially is something that has not been seen before in Sri Lanka, a verse narrative, a retelling through poetry of the ancient Indian epic, the Ramayana. And what has long been overdue, he looked at it from the point of view of the heroine, Sita, much adulated but also even according to the ancient story, much abused.

The verse is compelling, from the stress on seeking to understand at the opening

We always strive, to delve and to dive

To search the immeasurable universe

For answers. In a naïve hope to somehow satisfy

The acutely churning void

Burning, from the very depths inside

to the end of her life, dreaming of the boys she had cared for whom she had then sent to their father

A vagueness, a faintness far away

Disturbs this song I sing

Far away, blurred vision of two boys

Two boys, I hardly…know

…Far away…boys

…Far

The characterization is masterly, including of relatively minor figures, the insidious Kaikeyi, the noble Vibheeshan, the hapless Lakshman. Ram and Ravana and Hanuman are powerfully drawn, and the intense activity of the of the different courts, as in the drama of the wedding

Flowers cascading, jewels amazing

Choked in sweet perfume

Men were wining, kings were staggering

I was enraptured with my groom

Spices burning, and peacocks roasting

But of course throughout it is the depiction of Sita that takes centre stage, and the range of her emotions. These are wonderfully illustrated, by the four colour pictures of Sita by Vasantha’s mother Suwanitha, a distinguished artist in her own right. In addition to her portrait on the front and back covers and at the beginning of the first and fourth books into which the poem is divided, we have striking pictures of Kaikeyi and Mandodari, Ravana’s sympathetic wife.

These have been lovingly reproduced, in one of the most beautiful books Godage & Bros have published, the most attractive perhaps of its English language publications.

Suwanitha also provided black and white sketches which are interspersed throughout the book at the end of different stanzas, the bow Ram drew, the fire through which Sita was made to pass. They break us the onward flowing verse, which needs to be read slowly, with intervals to absorb its rhythms and the tale it tells.

It is heartening that Vasantha should have embarked on a new art form for Sri Lanka, though it is of course the oldest form of all as far as literature is concerned. And it is more than heartening that he should have produced something so readable and thought provoking, in its strong feminist message combined with a compelling retelling of the oldest of stories.