Chandrabati's Ramayan - Part 3 (Uttar Kanda)
The next (and last that we’ve got so far) chapter is an interlude between the main trio returning to Ayodhya and Seeta being exiled again.
The chapter begins with Ram and Seeta playing dice, surrounded by Seeta’s sakhis. They place a bet where if Rama loses, he’d give his royal ring to Seeta, and if she loses, then she’ll give him a hug in front of her friends.
In the first round, Rama loses, and the sakhis pretty much manhandle him, snatching the ring from his finger and putting it on Seeta’s, while taunting him for losing to a woman. The next round, Seeta loses, and now Rama taunts her friends, reminding them good-naturedly about the bet. So, this time, the sakhis physically lift Seeta in the air and drop her in Rama’s arms.
Kissing her blushing face again and again, Rama offers Seeta a boon. Chandrabati here stops to caution Seeta that her days of happiness are over, and so she must choose her boon carefully.
Seeta slowly whispers to Rama that she misses the forest and would like a vacation there. She misses her pets and the friends she had made in the ashrams there.
Rama kisses Seeta again and promises to send her to the forest the next day with Lakshman. Chandrabati says that, after all, who can defy fate as Seeta has now effectively chosen her own unwarranted punishment.
In the next scene, Seeta lies lazily on her bed, a storyteller entertaining her when Kukuya bursts in and asks her to describe her days in Ravan’s home. Seeta faints at the bare mention of Ravan, but Kukuya refuses to let it go. Finally, Seeta reluctantly confesses that she had only seen a glimpse of Ravan in the ocean when he was taking her away.
Kukuya then makes Seeta draw Ravan’s faces on her hand-fan. Too tired from this effort, Seeta falls asleep, and Kukuya cruelly puts this fan up on her chest and rushes to Rama.
Chnadrabati tells us that Manthara has raised Kukuya to be unrelenting and quarrelsome. Her own husband was driven insane by a medicine she used on him, and she drove the rest of her husband’s family away by building large walls around her home. Now she has pretty much run away from her in-laws’ home (about 4 years after Rama was exiled) and is incensed by the presence of any happily married couple around her.
Then Kukuya rushes to Rama and insults him for being too besotted with Seeta when Kukuya now has ‘proof’ that Seeta is in love with Ravan. Surprisingly, Rama does not even hesitate to believe this, and they both charge towards Seeta’s room like two tigers charging at a terrified deer.
Then, seeing Seeta asleep without a care in the world, with the fan still held where Kukuya had placed it, Rama is furious. His eyes are bloodshot, and blood rushes to his head. He metaphorically breathes fire as he contemplates Kukuya’s words and the sight he just saw. If we go by traditional descriptions of epic poetry, Rama here resembles more a demon than a man.
Chandrabati then comments that this very fire, that Rama, losing all common sense, has allowed Kukuya to light in himself, will burn Seeta alive, and Rama right alongside her. She also then says that this mistake of Rama, the decision that he’s taking completely devoid of any love or sense, will burn Ayodhya too in its flames since Ayodhya’s Lakshmi is now being thrown out of it.
[From here, I could not find the Bangla version available online, so I’ll be quoting Nabanita Debsen’s translation itself.]
Then, the last part of this poem, Nabanita Debsen assumes might not be composed by Chandrabati, since it moves away from its focus of Seeta and chooses to center the narrative first and foremost.
This chapter opens with a prayer to the river Sarayu, begging her to flow a little slower, and to the dawn to come a little later, for this is the last night of peace Seeta shall know for the rest of her mortal life.
Rama sends for Lakshman and breaks down in his arms, bemoaning that he had to kill both Ravan and Bali for apparently no fault of theirs, all just for Seeta. Now, Rama wants Lakshman to take Seeta away from him and the civilised society forever so that she ‘cannot do more harm’. Rama also believes that it is Tara and Mandodari’s heartfelt curses that made Seeta apparently turn unfaithful.
Then Lakshman unwillingly takes Seeta to Valmiki’s ashram, and then falls at her feet begging for her forgiveness. Hearing Rama’s order, Seeta stands speechless under a tree like a golden statue.
Then she says sadly to Lakshman that this indeed is her punishment for being happy when thousands of widows in Lanka cursed her for their fate. She also then says that she doesn’t even know who her real parents are, who threw her away even before she was born, so what does it matter now that she is once again without a place that she can call home?
Seeta only asks Lakshman to take care of Urmila and to tell Hanuman not to worry, since she knows that no matter what, she’ll at least always have a home in his heart.
Then Valmiki walks up to her and tells her that from now on, Valmiki is her father and Vasumata is her mother, and Valmiki’s sons and students are her younger brothers.
Sages come to visit Seeta every day, blessing her to be the royal mother one day, knowing that there is no longer any chance that she’ll ever be the queen.
Once the twins, Lav and Kush, are born, Valmiki invites Vashishtha to do all their post-birth rituals, and Vashishtha decides to keep this a secret for now.
The children grow up playing with the ashram animals in the day and returning to sleep in Seeta’s arms at night.
From the day that Seeta left, Ayodhya was plunged into a state of constant disaster. Crops failed, and the city fell to anarchy, and Rama, still suffering the consequence of his decision, was entirely unable to bring back any order, for it was his sins that had dragged his kingdom down.
At this juncture, Vashishtha tells Rama about Seeta and her sons and advises him to bring them back and perform an Ashvamedha yajna, but Rama refuses since ‘he cannot pick up a toy that he has thrown away once’. However, he concedes that he just might take Seeta back if she walks on fire in front of all the citizens of Ayodhya and proves her loyalty to Rama.
Then, by chance. Hanuman, who was away when all this was happening, is captured by Lav and Kush and brought to Seeta, where he hears of Seeta being exiled. This hurts him greatly, and knowing this to be the demise of the Rama that he knew, he chooses to stay on with Seeta only as her oldest son and the twins’ older brother.
Then Rama sent Lakshman to fetch Seeta with the demand that she must cooperate with him and sit with him in the yajna, and that she shall be tested in open court.
When Lakshman comes to fetch Seeta, Lav and Kush sit on either side of her on the chariot while Hanuman sits atop the flagstaff. Together, they walk into Rama’s sabha, Lav and Kush hiding behind the end of Seeta’s saree and Hanuman standing guard at the door.
Rama then orders her to walk into a pyre, and only if she isn’t burnt to ashes can she sit beside him again. Seeta tells him that she isn’t worried about being burnt, but once she enters the fire, she shall not return. Seeta no longer feels anything more than pity for Rama. She comments that Rama looks more tired, his regal robes having lost all lustre. She is, in fact, happy to walk into a lit pyre if Rama thinks that will solve all his problems. She is sad only for her sons, who shall now grow up without a mother.
Rama ordered a pyre of sandalwood to be set up for her. However, no one was willing to light it except Kukuya. When she did, her hair caught fire, and her face was burnt. Even before she fell to the ground screaming, Seeta held her in her arms, and with Vasumata’s blessings, cured the burns on Kukuya’s body.
The citizens exclaim that Rama must not want to burn Seeta since he’s still attracted to her. Angered by this, Rama himself rushes to light the pyre. Seeta then looks once at Rama, and back once at her sons and then she walks into the fire.
Then the pyre cracks in half, the waters of Patala’s river Bhogavati showers down on Seeta, and Vasumata appears, declaring that Rama could live happily with the subjects he so loved to be swayed by, and she is going to take her daughter home.
While Lakshman and Rama lament, Hanuman weeps with Lav and Kush and Chandrabati ends her poem with a lament that what else could Rama expect out of his ill-wrought actions!
