Book Review: 'The Renunciation,' Sita's Unspoken Story

The hermitage of Sage Valmiki rests silently in the woods, and within its simple confines is a woman caring for twin sons. She tells them nothing of her life before them: not her name, nor the kingdom she hailed from, nor even the husband who had banished her. All she is to them is a woman caring for them every day.

And that is where author Pragya Agarwal chooses to begin her version of the Renunciation. And that is where you can understand all about what she is trying to accomplish in this book. For in Agarwal's world, the events of the Ramayana have already taken place by page one. What she is giving you is the story that comes after.

The book is a 289-page journey through two time periods. In the present day, Sita, renaming herself Vandevi, observes her sons growing into fine young men who learn how to recite the Ramayana from their guru. As they are called to Ayodhya to perform before their king, neither they nor Ram are aware of the blood that ties them together. We see in flashbacks what came before: the years with Ram, the closeness and the distance, the small events that led to something unspeakable.

Of course, this is not the first retelling of the Ramayana from Sita's point of view, and one can sense that Agarwal is aware of the burden of all those books that came before. Where her book may differ is in its focus on the everyday details of a married woman's life. They are described in a way that is almost clinical in their precision, a hand lingering on a woman's face, a look that says a great deal between unspoken words until a chasm opens between them. The relationship between Sita and Ram is not idealised but something much more familiar: two people who love each other but are torn apart by events beyond their control.

Agarwal does portray Ram as a king who has to adhere to his rajdharma, as a man to whom his personal feelings must give way to his duty as king. It is also interesting to see that the novel has been quite restrained in its handling of the figure of Ram, there is no easy condemnation, no modern sensibility overlaid on the ancient hero. Instead, the critique is worked into the narrative through Sita's inner life, through the questions she asks that do not quite go away. What does it cost to be a hero? And when the laws are framed by men, where does that leave everyone else?

The novel gushes all the worries and doubts in the end. When Luv and Kush discover the truth about their parentage, when the dramatic tension is at its highest, Agarwal resists the temptation to provide a clean solution to all problems. The final chapters are occupied entirely by Sita, and here the writing finds its surest footing. Sita's return to the earth, that famous moment from the epic that has been interpreted so many ways, is now a gesture that is both quiet and subversive.

The book is at its best when it trusts its silences. The prose is always measured, never reaching for melodrama even when the material allows it to do so. Agarwal understands that Sita's strength is not in grand gestures, but in her determination to carry on the task of raising her children on her own, in her discipline in keeping a low profile, in her final gesture of leaving on her own terms.

The novel has asked its questions without insisting on answers. What does it mean to forgive? When a woman renounces everything, is that defeat or is it something else entirely? The questions linger, as they should.