God, you were no better too.

     We sat down and spoke our minds to finally reach the topic, ‘Why dint Ram trust Sita?’ (thanks to the advert. of Ramayan serial). My FIL and I were wondering if the older version of Ramayan featured Lav-Kush or if it was in the new one only. We remembered Sita being asked to walk through fire and also the part where she enters the earth after being tired of the insecurity of Ram and injustice of the world. My FIL started explaining that Ram heard a dobhi (washer-man) tell his wife that he ain’t like Ram who will accept his wife even after she’s been in the presence of a stranger for over a year. That was how the world worked it-seems (rolling eyes, I think it still works that way). Ram had to prove to the world that his wife was as PURE as gold and thus had her walk through fire. It was important that people dint talk rubbish (as I put it) and no one bothered about their own trust on the person being blamed.

     My question is - why would Ram have his wife go through hell instead of standing up against the world to support her (they sure say he believed her fidelity)? Shouldn’t he have been the one to set an example to the world that (he obviously knew) was going to worship him?

     It is said that Sita was born as Vedavanti in her past janma and Raavan tried to molest her. Vedavanthi who was undeterred in her thap (thavam) to attain Vishnu was angered by Raavan’s attitude, cursed him saying she would be born again and be the reason for his downfall and walked through fire to escape the mad-man. Jeez! I pity Raavan for being who he has been in both his janmas. Pretty sad huh? Due to the above incident Sita had had to walk through fire so as to quench the anger of Vedavanthi, who was nonetheless but her own self. Pretty cool an explanation for having her walk through fire. Phew…

     It is unfortunate that this piece of news is not widely known. Whenever I hear the story of Sita, I feel pity for her. Even when the world knew that she was so true that a blade of grass would create a ring of fire around her which Raavan couldn’t cross, no matter how hard he tried, she still had to prove herself. If that was Sita’s condition, I can’t question the conditions of today’s women :(

     I wonder – Why dint Ram get into the fire with Sita? He claimed to believe her but agreed for the agni-pariksha (test of fire) just for the world. P..lea..se..! He was away from his wife too. Shouldn’t he have proved himself? Why dint anyone question if he was a pathni-vratha (one woman man) and so much so as not think of another woman? Why was his fidelity taken for granted and Sita’s wasn’t?

     Ram is known as Ek patni vratha, but why isn’t Sita well-known as Ek pathi vratha? Shouldn’t we give Sita greater importance than Ram?

     The world has been unfair even during the age that we know of only from the epic. We have seen great evolutions in the cultural and social fronts along with major discoveries in science. But, we still look at women with doubt or, as in most cases, with disgust for no fault of theirs. (Thanks to Ram for creating the benchmark – rolling eyes).

    And we women (most of us) pray, ‘God, my husband should be like Ram’ and we never learn… Do we? I am not sure if I can end my unnecessary musings with “God save us”, for he was no better too.