‘Punishment of women’s sexuality dates back to Ramayana’

JAIPUR: Telugu writer P Lalitha Kumari aka Volga’s novella of interconnected stories, The Liberation of Sita, narrates events from the Ramayana from the perspectives of its female characters — Sita, Ahalya, Renuka, Urmila and Surpanakha — as they outgrow their victimhood and take charge of their stories. The writer-feminist talks to Supriya Sharma of her Sahitya Akademi Award-winning book and misconceptions about feminism.

Your Surpanakha is a natureworshipper and friends with Sita. What inspired stories about these minor characters?

I wrote a dance drama where I made Surpanakha and Sita friends who dance together. They saw themselves as pawns in the Arya-Dravida war. But when my show was telecast on Doordarshan, they couldn’t understand what the suffering of Surpanakha was about as she had lusted after a married man. So they censored this and I was angry and have been wanting to write about the violence she underwent since then. Ahalya’s story was magical in its inspiration, the way it almost came to me. Renuka, the mother of Parsurama, punished for looking at another man, is ordered to be killed by her son by her husband, which makes her realise her motherhood and wifehood are fragile . The reality remains the same today. In any untoward incident, the onus is on the woman: she wasn’t dressed right, she was out too late , she was asking for it. This disciplining and punishment of women’s sexuality continues from the days of the Ramayana.

You referred to your short story about Mandodari, how it got you feedback to not write such stories. What happened?

I got calls where people told me not to write these kind of stories that are harmful to society. The story was about how Mandodari dealt with her husband bringing another woman home and to her favourite garden, Ashok Vatika. She argues with Ravana about how he, despite being a Dravidian king, is imitating Aryan culture to dominate Aryans. And she refuses to dress like a widow, something that Rama insists on. So he says her husband’s pyre would keep on burning till she gives in. In popular culture, long standing problems are referred to as Ravana’s pyre.