The Forest of Enchantments Paperback – Big Book, 31 October 2019

I absolutely loved this book!! What an interesting and refreshing perspective on the infamous Ramayan! I've grown up hearing about it from a mainly male view with Ram, Lakshman, Ravan and Hanuman being at the centre of the story and poor damsel in distress Sita is forgotten, but now, I'll be sure to remember this as thr Sitayan instead. This was so beautifully written and I would definitely recommend this!!

Fantastic ! A absolute must read ! Loved every word of it

He has come to teach the men, but you have come to teach the women. The lesson you teach will be a quieter one, but as important.Most of us know Ramayan, having heard it from the mouths of our grandparents or having read/saw it as kids, or, having at least acquainted ourselves with the basic facts, post the Babri Masjid-Ram Janma Bhoomi issue. With mythology becoming the hottest trend in the story writing market for some years now, I must say it was getting annoying to see everyone trying their hands at it. Choosing the right one seemed impossible. What if it was just fan-fiction? (I must mention here that I am not too fond of fan fiction, I find them ruinous) Or worse, what if some writer was just trying to get in a few bucks by preaching rather than actually presenting a worthwhile retelling to the readers?Write our story, too. For always we’ve been pushed into corners, trivialized, misunderstood, blamed, forgotten- or maligned and used as cautionary tales.The Forest of Enchantments by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni is not a retelling of Ramayan, it is, for lack of a better word, Sitayan. Because it is the story of Sita, from her own mouth. It is the story of Sunaina, helping her husband Janak run the kingdom from behind closed doors. It is the story of Kaushalya, a queen forgotten. It is the story of Kaikeyi, a woman who’s role as a mother clouded every other aspect of her life. It is the story of Urmila, left behind to wait and weep. It is the story of Meenakshi turned Surpanakha, the trusting asura. It is the story of Ahalya, the unfairly judged. It is the story of Mandodari, the blind supporter of her husband. It is the story of us women, in this world, and those who were before us and will come after us. And most of all, it is a story about women in love.Red. But of course. How else could I write my story except in the color of menstruation and childbirth, the color of the marriage mark that changes women’s lives, the color of the flowers of the Ashoka tree under which I had spent my years of captivity in the palace of the demon king?Sita was found as an infant by the King of Mithila and lived her life as a princess, the elder daughter of King Janak and Queen Sunaina, along with her jovial younger sister Urmila. Both the princesses shared a camaraderie beyond just words. They knew the other without them telling anything. So when brothers Ram and Lakshman came to the palace with their Guru, both knew that the other had lost her heart to the respective brother.“Remember this, too: sometimes our ill luck has consequences that bless others”Marriage was bliss. Love was aplenty and so were pleasures and comfort in the palace of Dasharath, father of their husbands and King of Koshal. The coronation day arrived in a blink of an eye, love tends to do that, pass time like it was just yesterday when they were gawking at the handsome princes in their father’s palace. And then it was time for the fates to turn. Exiled for 14 years of forest living, Ram and Sita along with Lakshman made their way away from the palace and Ayodhya.Years passed with simple living and minimal troubles. But just when their exile was about to end, Sita was abducted by the demon king. Prisoned and guarded all the time, time seemed to stop for Sita. Waiting for Ram to come and rescue her was the hardest thing she had to do, or so she thought. But when she was finally reunited with her beloved, she faced her life’s exams, and it was even more difficult than the year she spent in captivity.“What occurred when I was alone in the darkness, under the sorrow tree, you don’t know. You don’t know my despair. You don’t even know my exhilaration, how it felt- first in the forest and then in Ayodhya- when I was the most beloved woman in creation.”Oh, what a book it was! Lucid and profound, the words slipped easily into my mind and it wasn’t long before I was deep into Sita’s world. Ms. Banerjee’s Sitayan is so relatable! Why couldn't we have been exposed to such interpretations earlier in life? Why did we have to think that being perfect is the benchmark? Why did we have to grow up thinking that ‘Agni Pariksha’ was necessary to prove women’s innocence and purity? And what does purity even mean? Is it of body or mind? And why, o why, does ‘Log kya kahenge’ matter so much!?“Anything that makes us forget our true selves is a trap, princess- even something we love or define as beautiful.”Ms. Banerjee, for me, has done justice to the topic she chose. Trust me when I say this because we are a community of unbending uptight people who regard such writings as blasphemy as they don’t sit well with our patriarchal setups. Although I don’t really know/believe that epics like these are true or not, I cringe when someone breaks them into thousand pieces and makes something indigestible. Why then, this has me swooning all over? Because it has blown me over with the portrayal of love and its different facets at every step. The lovers’ love, the mother-child love, the sibling love, the friendship love, and most importantly, self-love, all are laid bare with the rawest of emotions dripping. And with that, comes the sense behind the entire story. It is all for love, in the end.Why was it our holy men who made a big deal of giving up on so many things- comfort, fame, family- couldn’t seem to give up their tempers?While Sita’s character was beautifully built and matured, other characters weren't given their own voice. Rather, it was Sita from whom we learn of their roles and I would want to go with the flow and think that Sita did justice to them when she spoke about them. Her relationship with Ram is explored beyond the measures we have usually read, or at least I have known. It was a refreshing insight for me to feel connected to her, her human side rather than her being the unreachable Goddess. However, her other roles got subdued in the glow of her wifely duties. Her relationship with her parents, her sister, her mothers-in-law, Lakshman, and lastly Hanuman, there was so much scope to explore there, but I know it would have been a humongous task. Maybe there is time for those voices to come alive. For now, I am glad we have another voice of Sita, a real voice who can stand for her own when the need arises.Remain true to yourself- and to your heart. Be courageous and remember, even the blackest night must end in dawn.

The book is remarkable and I revisited my old Ramayana serial days. But this book gave a perspective to Sita’s thought process, her views, her mindset, her relation / equation with Ram and her own questioning nimble mind and answers seeking soul... A thought provoking and humbling side of Sita.... Worth every rupee and re-reading too.. Loved every bit of it.

The main point of the book was to highlight Sita, show things from her perspective and make her a whole person instead of a sideline character in Ramayan. But this book did not add anything to my image of Sita, other than "endurance". The whole point of the book failed.This book gave Sita a better ending but.. it's not enough.Overall, I'm not impressed. I liked The Palace of Illusions but I simply did not like this.I liked Sita the tale of love better to this book .Sita questions the boundary line between what is acceptable and unacceptable in a male-oriented world, which imposes a certain standard on the conduct of women and judges their actions from that bounded rationality. Forest of Enchantments uses Sita’s experiences to unravel the gendered double standard and when it is necessary for women to protest rather than accept their fate.