Sitayana

As the title suggests, Amish’s Sita: Warrior of Mithila, the second in his Ram Chandra series, presents an entirely new Sita, one of his own making.

- Arshia Sattar

Here, she is a woman trained to fight and to rule a kingdom, very different from the person we encounter in the more traditional versions of the story. She is an equal partner to Ram in every way, almost his superior at some moments. The backdrop of Sita’s growth into a daring warrior and an able administrator are the trade wars being forced upon the kingdoms of the Sapt Sindhu by the Lankans. Sita uses all her skills, martial as well as diplomatic, to protect Mithila and those whom she loves. Along the way, she marries Ram and a new adventure begins, one that will place her in even greater danger but also bring her to the zenith of her destiny.

Sita’s story is one strand in the larger narrative Amish is creating. He tells his readers that the series has the structure of a ‘hyper-link’ where multiple narratives collide in the final book. As Scion of Ikshvaku gives us Ram’s backstory, so here, we have Sita’s. But the reason for this new characterisation is a plot event that Amish is developing—I would love to tell you what that is, but I fear that it would break a certain tension in the book.