Part 2: Earth and the Faces of Love.
Earth, one of the elements we are known to be made of, an element that keeps you grounded, an element that we will end up going to once our life is over, perhaps the only element that isn't in motion. It doesn't have to reach anywhere like the flames of fire have to, neither does it flow anywhere like the water, it isn't light like the air, nor does it envelope anything like the sky/space/ether does. What makes Earth so special then? It is perhaps the only element that provides without judging. It bears everything positive and everything negative, it tolerates every possible burden without complaining, it is only when it becomes beyond its capacity to bear is when it trembles, to lighten itself, to bring things to balance or at times to only display its fury at how man mistreats the nature.
Eons ago was a time when this very earth gave birth. She gave birth to someone believed to be an incarnation of a goddess, the goddess who as a part of a divine plan had to descend to earth as a human and it seems she may have thought that let her take birth from the womb of the one whose plight the gods and goddesses wished to lessen. Thus she was born of the earth, but little did she know that she would indeed end up being like her mother, patient, kind, bearing, providing and enduring and when the man judged her and treated her with disrespect which was too much to be endured she displayed her fury and chose to abandon him and go back to the very earth who bore her. Her name itself came from her mother "seet"which means furrow, thus she was named Sita.
Sita is worshiped across India and also Nepal, but as much as she is revered, she is misjudged and misunderstood. It won't be wrong of me to say that whenever we hear the name Sita, we imagine a woman who is teary-eyed, who is alone and who is very helpless, it is sad that beyond these superficial descriptions that are subconsciously laid down by the society we are unable to see her resilience, her strength, her fierce determination which albeit silently speaks volumes of her caliber. It's worth wondering of how shallow it is on our part that when it comes to Draupadi (daughter of fire), we are quick to opine that she was someone who was strong minded and determined( something that we have just begun to appreciate otherwise even her confidence and strength was misjudged as petulance and haughtiness) only because she was vocal and brazen, but when it comes to Sita, her silent resilience is misjudged as her helplessness, only because she is polite and demure, because she chooses to measure her tone to express opinions. It only shows how quick we are at taking anything at face value and our inability to interpret things that are written between the lines. Which leads to the question that have we been worshiping Sita out of devotion or out of sympathy?
Following the lines of the first part, this post is based on my understanding and interpretation of Sita from renowned author Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni's, bestselling novel "The Forest of Enchantments", which is basically the narration of the popular epic "Ramayan" from Sita's point of view. Chitra in her version of Sitayan (the journey of Sita) continues to amaze the readers as she did in her decade old classic "The Palace of Illusions", both these books show how skillfully she has you investing in two of the most misunderstood female protagonists of Indian mythological epics. While in Palace of Illusions Draupadi experienced the forms of love till she realized the truest form of love, in the Forest of Enchantments, Sita observed the various faces of love while she experienced the same only to realize love in its entirety.
The book makes the story step down from the huge pedestal of an epic to a sacred position of a love story that has a tragic ending. The book is a journey of a woman from her marriage till she decides to abandon this materialistic and judgmental world.
The love of Sita and Ram is just the other end of the extremes of love; at one end of which is the impulsive and passionate love of Shakti and Shiva , in the intermediate lies the innocent and carefree love of Radha and Krishna, and eventually the toughest end of this spectrum representing endurance and patience of love is the love of Sita and Ram.
In her initial days of her marriage, adjusting to her roles as a wife and as a daughter-in-law, Sita discovered happier and lighter aspects of love. She discovered how even duty is a form of love, she realized how love works in its ways irrespective of desires and expectations;
.....the more love we distribute, the more it grows, coming back to us from unexpected sources. And its corollary: when we demand love, believing it to be our right, it shrivels leaving only resentment behind.
When her husband got banished as a result of his stepmother's insecurities, she realized how love changes into hate in an impulse. Love is too pure and hence very fragile, so susceptible to the dilutions of human expectations and insecurities, that merely loving doesn't become enough, the love has to be guarded with respect and freedom. For love doesn't mean binding, nor does it mean an imposition of wishes.
Earthly as she was, Sita always found herself connected to the forest, thus in the exile she never felt the pangs of suffering or discomfort, that began when she was abducted by Raavan. While in captivity, as she steeled her mind making herself immune against the cajoling and threats of the demon king she couldn't help but observe how complex love was in the case of Raavan and his wife Mandodari, who knew her husband has committed a sin, yet her love for her husband didn't subside. It is debatable that love is that complex that one's love conflicts with the other or is the human nature that complex that the situational decisions it makes out of its wits, desires or expectations, creates this illusion of love having so many complexities.
As soon as she was rescued, She was abandoned by her husband, who was doing his duty as the king of Ayodhya. On having been abandoned by the other half of her soul, she chose to burn herself alive, only for the god of fire to give testimony of her purity, post which even her husband apologized assuring her that he knew as her husband that she was chaste, it was only his kingly duties that restricted him. She realized the impulsive nature of love when even she was quick to forgive him.
However, the trials and tribulations weren't over yet, for after they returned from their exile and were crowned king and queen, the people of Ayodhya indulged themselves in filthy gossip regarding Sita's chastity, which forced Ram to banish her to forest again, an action for which he is criticized till date. Little did he know that his beloved wife was pregnant with twins when he decided to take this dreadful step.
In this second phase of forest exile she felt defeated by love because no matter how severe this injustice felt, she couldn't bring herself to hate Ram. It's noteworthy that she never tried to change Ram or lead him away from his idealistic ways, no matter how extreme they may have seemed. She knew that love no matter how deep or true doesn't ensure change at the end of our beloved, the best that can happen is we change ourselves. Change out of love is meaningful only when you feel inspired by your love and not out of desire to posses your love or the expectation of having your love requited.
As she entered the phase of motherhood with the birth of her sons Luv and Kush, she realized that the love in it's purest form is the one between a mother and her child, a mother who out of care and affection provides and its child who out of care and volition serves her.
At the final stage of her story when the world demanded a proof of her chastity again, she brought forth her fury. She like the earth couldn't bear the burden of misjudgment, gossip, reputation, unnecessary trials any longer. The biggest burden that she had to bear for the fourteen years she spent away from her beloved was the burden that arose from the constant need of sacrificing love for duty. Thus to set an example for the succeeding generations of womenkind she chose not to bow down to the prejudice of the society and renounced the world by going back to her mother earth. Her journey was indeed one of a kind, for she served as an example not only by how she lived but also by how she chose to depart from this world of which she didn't feel the need to belong to.
As the earth cracked open to take away her most beloved daughter with her, she could see her beloved husband profusely apologizing and claiming his love for her. She was in awe at the marvel of how she had forgiven him long ago, of she knew that he had always loved her even when he had to abandon her. She knew that she loved him even if she had felt betrayed by him. It is amazingly explained by the author in the last lines of this book.
"'I forgave you a long time ago', I say to Ram. 'Though I didn't know it until now. Because this is the most important aspect of love, whose other face is compassion: It isn't doled out, drop by drop. It doesn't measure who is worthy and who isn't. It is like the ocean.
Unfathomable. Astonishing. Measureless.'"
Thus, love is as simple and at the same time as twisted as we perceive or interpret it to be. We love our loved ones the way we understand love and the ones who love us, they show love in the way they understand love, so who got love and who didn't is not that easy a question to answer, but rest assured, all forms of love comes from compassion. It has compassion as one of its faces yet puts us through the hard times, it demands freedom yet it binds and pulls us with its golden ropes at its will.
The book had an interesting approach at showing Sita as someone who is an incarnation of goddess indeed but due to being born a human she isn't aware of her divine self, something she gets only in fragments, something she realizes when she has realized love entirely.
Taking cue from the above, the final conclusion that could be drawn from the journey of both these Elemental Daughters is that when love is realized without any regret the way it was by Draupadi and when love is understood without any judgement and bias, the way it was by Sita, it does help you realize your divine potential. Thus one should go with the flow of love, realizing and accepting its forms and faces at the same time have faith in love as it will eventually help you realize the divinity in its entirety. Just remember one thing.
That entirety is you and that divinity is love.
