UTTARA KAANDA

On the original release of Uttara Kaanda, S.L. Bhyrappa’s

twenty-fourth novel, the stalwart of Kannada literature said that he

had been so overwhelmed by Valmiki’s Ramayana that he couldn’t

go beyond Ayodhya Kaanda. However, the all-pervasiveness of the

Rama discourse on Indian writing and philosophy compelled him

to examine the final volume of the original epic: Uttara Kaanda. It

was a revelation. In it he saw Rama, Lakshmana and Sita as human.

Lakshmana’s subservience to his brother was not absolute; power had

changed Rama; and Sita never recovered from the humiliation of her

banishment.

In Bhyrappa’s retelling of the epic, Sita looks back on her life—

abandoned at birth and abandoned again by her husband. Her entire

life has been a quest for home, a sense of belonging. When they return

from their long exile, Rama is anointed king of Ayodhya, but a pregnant

Sita is sent away to live in a forest. Her exile doesn’t end.

Uttara Kaanda is Sita’s soliloquy: O Rama, I loved the pure man

you were in your youth, not the man you have become—not this man

who is shackled by the royal throne. My love for you died sixteen years

ago. A master of detail, Bhyrappa mines the ancient epic to humanise

characters who have, for centuries, been looked upon as gods beyond

reproach, bringing us as close as we’ll ever come to understanding

them.