Sita and the Slaying of the Shapeshifter

Sita and Viradha

The fair queen of the noble Rama was anything but a trophy wife. Before she was the beauteous betrothed of the one true king, she was Sita, a small, scrawny tomboy mucking about her family’s considerable estate, riding horses bareback, playing pranks on her big brothers, and wondering if she’d ever grow out of her unfortunate unibrow. The daughter of a king, she learned from a young age the importance of self-defense: in a world of magical curses and creatures she never knew when she would be next in a long line of victimized damsels, and worked tirelessly every day to secure a future as a strong, independent woman capable of Shiva-worthy destruction with her mighty roundhouse kick.

At five, her parents caught her acting out a valiant rescue effort with the neighborhood boys, whom she’d forced to play the part of the rakshasas and fearlessly slain one by one.

At twelve she narrowly escaped punishment for listening in on her brothers’ lessons in military strategy by agreeing to take classes in being ladylike.

At seventeen she was growing into a young woman of enviable looks, and thus had to bolster her skill in hand-to-hand svarakshākalā to match the increasing (and increasingly deaf) number of suitors and their ill-fated attempts to take her hand in marriage.

And when she did offer her hand in marriage she made sure it was to a man worthy of her affection. Rama’s unquestionable integrity and strength of character made the decision to marry easy. Though Sita knew she was perfectly capable of living out a long, productive, happy life without any man, she also knew that Rama was worth the big white wedding hassle and subsequent unexpected exile.

It was but a few weeks into a fourteen year hiatus, yet things were looking up. The birds were singing, the sun was shining, and flowers intermittently rained over the path of the three travelers, until a giant ugly monster materialized in front of them and moved as if to try the oldest trick in the book: the damsel in distress. Observant of the ever-approaching clawed monster meathook on her six, Sita repressed a colossal eye-roll. Her mind went to her brothers’ warrior arts classes, and she considered her options as time seemed to slow around her. First, the facts: they were facing a cursed rakshasa with an imperviousness to weapons. The scenarios played out in her head as she considered them:

Option 0: Allow the monster to grab her and watch helplessly as her knight in shining armor valiantly fights for her rescue while twiddling her thumbs and offering the occasional teary scream for encouragement. Veto.

Option 1: Jump the hand. Duck to avoid ensuing mad grab by the opposite arm. Tuck and roll, coming up brandishing previously concealed lower-back daggers. Eviscerate. Wait. Curse prevents evisceration. On to:

Option 2: Jump arm. Clamber up to the monster’s enormous humped back. Snag low-hanging vine. Fashion noose. Utilize. A quick glance reveals no satisfactory shrubbery. Next:

Option 3: Deftly reach into elbow pouch for world-feared monster-level ghost-pepper-spray. Shake before use. Apply liberally to cataract-ridden inflamed demon eyeballs. Incapacitate.

In a blink, Sita had processed the information and come to the conclusion that it would be a day to have some fun. Time returned to its normal speed as the claws came closing in. Sita leapt, using the beast’s scaled forearm as leverage to propel herself into the air, reaching up to grab the twin blades concealed in her ornate hairpiece and issuing a formidable battle cry as she dove directly into the belly of the beast. Rama and Lakshmana exchanged a beleaguered look and shouldered their weapons. By this point they were used to being benched by the formidable warrior woman.

Sita explosively emerged from the creature’s chest cavity a moment later, clad head-to-toe in guts and brandishing the heart she had quite literally ripped from its body. She turned. “You can let the curse-giver know that a woman of virtue is by all means as deadly a weapon as any man can create by hand.”

With its dying breath, the monster replied, “When I was originally cast into this form and given the terms for my release, I was told the great spirit OF Rama would be responsible for my freedom and ascension. I see now that I misheard. Prepositions can be tricky in the old tongue. The great spirit WITH Rama, the capable Sita, was the true lifter of my curse. Thank you, noble woman, for fulfilling the role of the clever warrior needed to save me from this monstrous existence. I am forever in your debt.”

It was but a few weeks into a fourteen-year exile, yet things were looking up. The birds were singing, the sun was shining, and flowers intermittently rained over the path of the three travelers, cheerily regaling each other with tales of what might be next to come. The fair Sita remained watchful, content to converse yet ready to whoop the booty of the next hellion that dared mess with them.

The End

Author's Note: Perhaps it's the budding 21st century feminist in me, but as I read parts A and B of the Ramayana I grew increasingly exasperated with Sita's characterization (or lack thereof). From the beginning of the Ramayana to this point in the epic, her only qualities are her noteworthy looks and an unceasing devotion to Rama. She goes the majority of the reading without saying anything, which was surprising to me given how often she is present in the story. I know that these were desirable qualities in ancient India, but I decided to give her character a re-write with a more modern empowering twist. In the Ramayana, Sita often just hovers in the background like a delicate flower, taking breaks to alternately cry, complain about her wardrobe, and get abducted to serve a purpose as a damsel in distress. I decided I wanted that to change, and this story was the result. In the PDE Ramayana, this chapter begins with our three main protagonists happening on a cursed shapeshifting rakshasa demon named Viradha, who promptly takes Sita as a damsel and reveals that he cannot be harmed by the crude weapons of man. In the chapter, Sita doesn't speak and is relegated to a wallpaper role as Rama and Lakshmana fight Viradha to save her. Initially, they try to use weapons, but when that doesn’t work, Rama has the idea to bury the rakshasa neck-deep in dirt, thereby breaking the curse. In my story, I kept the invulnerability of the beast but tweaked it a bit and omitted Rama's clever ending in favor of some good ol' fashioned feminist butt-kickery and a fun Sita backstory to give her more depth of character.

Image Info:

Above: A backdrop image from Chandigarh, India's, Siswan Forest Range.

Source: Fodors.com. Link.

Below: The cover of Amish Tripathi's Sita: Warrior of Mithilia, which tells a story of a very different Sita from the PDE Ramayana's version.

Source: Link.

Bibliography: PDE Ramayana: Viradha. Link.