The Forest of Enchantments by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni Book Review in Tamil
The most loved and respected Tales of India — the Ramayan is not only an epic but also a tragic love story. Though it has its own pros and cons, it is regarded as the most read books among epics stories. Today we are going to discuss, one of the most trending mythological book written by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni -” the Forest of Enchantments in Tamil”. This is the retelling of Ramayan from Sita’s perspective. Let’s get started
Book Blur:
The Ramayana, one of the world’s greatest epics, is also a tragic love story. In this brilliant retelling, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni places Sita at the centre of the novel: this is Sita’s version. The Forest of Enchantments is also a very human story of some of the other women in the epic, often misunderstood and relegated to the margins: Kaikeyi, Surpanakha, Mandodari. A powerful comment on duty, betrayal, infidelity and honour, it is also about women’s struggle to retain autonomy in a world that privileges men, as Chitra transforms an ancient story into a gripping, contemporary battle of wills. While the Ramayana resonates even today, she makes it more relevant than ever, in the underlying questions in the novel: How should women be treated by their loved ones? What are their rights in a relationship? When does a woman need to stand up and say, ‘Enough!’
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It’s HER story! — The Forest of Enchantments Book Review
The Puranas speak of the highness and the achievements done by the male character or the villain in any story. But, who will speak for the females? Didn’t they have any role to play?? What were their thoughts? How did the betrayal, bad mouth hurt them? Didn’t they feel worse? — Read about them!
Sita finally decides to accept Ram’s call and head towards Ayodhya to meet him. What happens before Sita goes into earth with her mother? Did Sita forgive Rama? Or did she burst out her anger??
The novel starts with Valmiki handing over his RAMAYANA to Sita and encourages to write her story which the world might not know. And thus SITA begins HER story “The Sitayan”
The most treasured part of growing up in anyone’s life is their Childhood, Sita too had the most beautiful childhood at Mithila (the modern-day Janakpur in Nepal) along with her sister Urmila. Sita Enjoyed playing with the plants and learning their medicinal importance. She helped the people of Mithila to cure any diseases with these medicinal herbs, she also had a Healing centre where people were admitted in case of emergency and to cure their problems. The subjects of Mithila looked at Sita as a Divine Gift. They all loved and respected her, though she was not a direct hire to the King Janaka.
Sita was always fond of Forest and wanted to explore it. But, she didn’t know she was going to explore it in her future part of life. Life completely changed once Sita got married to RAM and Life at Ayodhya was not an easy task. She made all efforts to take care of each and everyone in the palace and the people of Ayodhya.
During her progress to learn and understand Ayodhya and her husband Ram, she discovered the Different ways of Love AND how it varied from person to person.
Ram, Lakshmana and Sita — 13 Years of Vanavasam
Her later part of Life in the Forest was amazingly narrated. What kind of mental tortures did she face, though she was happy staying in the forest, she felt remorse for Ram. She wanted Rama to administrate Ayodhya.Ram had so many plans on how he should rule. He wanted to be a better ruler than his father.
At the End of 13th years in the forest. They had reached the southern part of India. This part of the forest was mysterious yet beautiful. Sita loved this forest and she had started to plant new spalling in the front yard of their hut. They lived happily until one day when Rama and Lakshmana hurt surpanakha when she approached ram and proposed him. Sita felt extremely bad for her and got angry on ram and Lakshmana for hurting a girl yet she reminded silent.
The later part of the story is pitty and harsh. Sita gets kidnapped and is taken to Sri Lanka in order to take revenge for what they did to surpanakha. What happens to her in Lanka? How was she treated there? How did she remain strong? How did the people of Lanka treat sita?
These stories of Sita are less spoken/shared with us. We ARE told of the greatness and the achievements of Ram and other male characters in this story, But not the other way around- what kind of life did the female live in?were they treated equally? Why was Sita, Kaikeyi,Urmila,mandodari life not taken as seriously as the life events of Ram, Raavan and others?. This book talks about all those.
Why Should you Read this Book:
You will know more about the pain, Anger, Love and other hardship Sita encountered during her different phases of life. Most importantly how to stay strong and protect yourself from any hard situation in life. The Book Narration was extraordinary. This story brought more closeness to Sita than the Epic Story that was told to us. This book will always hold a special place in my reading journey.You can Buy this book for less cost here “The Forest of Enchantments book”. Hope this Book Review “The Forest of Enchantments was useful to you”
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Happiee READING 💕💕