Bala karthiga M

A question popped up on my Quora feed that instantly caught my attention.

And, here goes my answer.

If Ravana did not touch Sita while kidnapping her, and Ram casts doubt on Sita and burns her in a pyre, who is the good guy?

CONSENT, MACHA!

CONSENT!!!!

Long story short: Ram is the good guy.

Ravan – no matter how much you hippies glorify him, IS NOT the good guy.

Now, short story long:

First of all, Sita burning herself and Raavan not touching her while he held her captive – are both symbolism – a very common type of symbolism that you find in all great epics and pieces of literature.

I’ve personally always loved the Ramayana. Yes, sure, the Mahabharata is a really genius piece of work for its management strategies and war tactics, but the Ramayana resonates more with my taste in literature and spiritual thought.

Every time I read the Ramayana, it’s like a distant echo of a memory I had a thousand years ago is playing inside my head. It’s one book that I keep re-reading throughout the year. It’s probably the hopeless romantic in me.

For example, the scene where Rama and Sita see each other for the first time.

Did you know?

Sita’s swayamvar was not the first time the cuties saw each other.

According to the poet Kamban, Rama and Lakshman reached Janakpuri along with sage Vishvamitra for Sita’s Swaymvara. When there, they had some time to see around the place.

They were casually strolling through one of the palace gardens when he caught a glimpse of Sita, sunkissed, and chilling with her girl gang – on the palace balcony.

Then and there, the Crown Prince of Ayodhya was enamored with the beauty of Sita – it was almost like the entire world had bowed down to her beauty. And here’s the most beautiful part – the admiration was mutual.

Sita was immediately love-struck.

It seemed as if he was out of sight in an instant.

Sita rose and began to flutter around the balcony, looking up and down the palace entrance. She appeared upset, but her attendants did not know what was wrong. They tried to calm her, but nothing seemed to work. Sita only knew that she had to find him. It had only taken a second, but the spell was cast.

They were hopelessly in love!

Yes, their eyes met merely for seconds, but that’s all that it took. That’s how powerful their feelings for each other and their love were.

That’s how beautiful and deep love and intimacy can be – if it’s consensual.

To the superficial, half-baked mind – it’s Ram burning Sita.

But to those who have read the epic, devoured all its versions, and melted into the emotions and conflicts the characters immerse in, you will know there was a lot of turmoil and suffering on Ram’s side as well.

Ram certainly did not go, ‘hey look I burnt my wife just to be a popular icon.’

No.

Ram suffered (symbolically, more than Sita) when he was forced to put her through the ritual. Their love was not being tested. It was his leadership and his dharma that was being tested, and it takes a mature eye to look at the two separately. The only people hating Ram for the decision he took, were the masses – and NOT SITA. Never Sita.

I repeat it was Ram’s Dharma. And Sita (consensually and willingly) believed that she shared that dharma with him – out of mad, mad love and not by force.

You do crazy things for love, you know. It’s not new and it’s not exclusive to Sita and Ram.

Juliet fakes her own death and thus ends up being the reason Romeo kills himself. That doesn’t mean Juliet was plotting Romeo’s death. Paro never enjoyed being the reason that Dev became an incurable alcoholic.

When there’s mad love, disasters are bound to happen – but those disasters are personal choices.

You can’t immoralise the holy sanctity of marriage and love between a couple, because both of them chose and reciprocated and mutually agreed to every decision they took, and I think you need to fall selflessly in love with someone to understand where such feelings come from.

But Ravan on the other hand never had his feelings reciprocated by Sita.

Sita was taken away and held hostage against her will – and that’s the end of discussion.

And don’t give me this ‘eyyy, but he did not touch her, no…’ crap because IT IS STILL WRONG.

It doesn’t matter if you touch a girl (or a person for that matter), force gifts upon a person, follow the person, marry the person or rape the person – no one act of consent breach is greater or lesser than another. All of it is vile and disgusting.

Simply put – anything that you do without the consent of the said person – MAKES YOU THE BAD GUY.

The reason I wrote such a long answer is, this mindset is exactly what infuriates me about the current Indian society.

If you tell me that Ravan was the good guy here (for kidnapping, assaulting and holding a woman hostage AGAINST HER FRIGGIN WILL) and Ram is the bad guy (for apparently ‘burning’ his wife) you are the reason that stalking, acid attacking and even honor killing is a justified in this country.

You see, when you glorify the guy that did things to a woman that made her uncomfortable, traumatized her and hurt her, but you think he is still the good guy just because he did not break a few rules that you dumbasses have set as the criteria to that makes a woman ‘chaste’ or ‘pure’, something is terribly wrong and twisted in your mind.

By glorifying Ravan, you are normalizing and trending the mindset that it’s okay to breach a woman’s (or a person’s) consent as long as you don’t do the nasty-nasty to them.

To me, chastity is not holding a woman against her will, messing with her mental health, and then going about boasting how noble you are.

You can’t sell that BS to me.

We still have a long way to go as a society in order to respect and understand a person’s right to make a choice.

It was Sita’s choice to fall in love with Ram.

It was Sita’s choice to accompany the love of her life into a cruel exile.

It was Sita’s choice to either take up the agniparitcha or just leave.

(Now, I’m not here to argue if that gory test was even necessary because the time and the societal/cultural norms wherein the plot is located is ENTIRELY DIFFERENT from what seems right or normal to us in Digital India, 2018. Basic Anthropology.)

I repeat It was Sita’s choice to either take up the agniparitcha or just leave.

And she chose to.

IT WAS SITA’S FRIGGIN CHOICE.

So, who are you and I to argue who was a better man to her, when she CLEARLY tells us she would not only burn herself to be with the love of her life – Ram but would rather stay impoverished and tortured in a cave, than submit herself to a guy she does not want and end the misery?

Get the symbolism of the burning and the captivity here?

Everything Sita suffered under Ravan was not something she willingly wanted. It was not something SHE CHOSE. Ravan inflicted and forced that situation on her.

Everything Sita endured and did for Ram – on the other hand, was out of fierce, devoted love.

I rest my case.

Note:

This was my first ever Quora answer to reach 85,000 views, 6900 upvotes, and 105 shares!

If you like this answer, follow me on Quora! 

I post answers and blogs there, and it’s a channel that’s currently my favorite after Twitter.

XOXO,

Bala ❤

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