writing back to the centre

from: classical telugu poetry - an anthology

edited and translated by: v narayana Rao and david Schulman

Sita

Sita was my classmate

she and i pored over

that great new poem the Ramayana

of Satyanarayana

when we were finished I asked her

looking ar her thoughtful eyes:

"You listened to the whole story

we followed Rama

with the swiftness of poetry

into the wilderness of ancient times

we met him, went, to the forest with him,

we saw him

kill Bali from behind the tree

and test his wife by fire

Now tell me, do you want to 

live like sita, the wife of hero Rama?

When she heard me, she said:

"hey Pratabhi

Sita is the very epitome of

Indian womanhood

Its a dream, having

the good fortune

to live like her

But even if I want to be Sita

I'd never want to be Rama's wife

tell me, would you ever want to be 

Rama yourself?"

why should I, when you don't want

to be Rama's wife?

My desire, rather is to become Ravana.

with all my ten mouths

I will kiss your lips, your face. I will

bind you

with the gaze of my twenty eyes

I will press you to my chest

with twenty strong arms

and make you one with me

in one embrace 

Now,

Sita is my wife

                          - pratabhi (1919- )

isn't it interesting?? here Pratabhi, the poet wins the hand of "sita", who'd prefer to be Ravana's wife and not Rama's. What we see here is the subversion of a Grand Narrative built over a myriad years that all hindu women would  naturally and blissfully want to chant the hymn to gauri and fast on to ensure a Rama like husband. The test by fire to which sita is subjected  and insensate machinations to kill Bali on the part of Rama is contrasted with the pratabhi's passionate "Ravana role-playing"..

These little subversions here and there perhaps make life less tyrannical with those little gaps to be filled with all those hitherto supressed voices. Writing back to the centre hence becomes one of the greatest freedom that a writer representing the voice of "the other" can enjoy. And the hitherto "infallible" fortresses of the given narratives become less formidable to scale.

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