Book offers balanced view of Lord Ram and Sita's life

Why is Lord Ram often shown in a bad light for asking his wife Sita to go through the ordeal of fire? Was Sita's greatest quality her ability to suffer in silence? A book attempts to find a "balanced perspective" from the epic Ramayana.

Debutant author Neeraja Phatak delved deep into contradictory arguments of the epic after reading several versions of the Ramayana.

"Each one of them portray Lord Ram as someone who was loving, caring and affectionate, yet the episode of him asking his wife to go through the fire trial has been interpreted over the ages as "cruel".

"We have always heard this story that Sita listened to whatever Ram told her to do. She did what a woman is supposed to do to abide by what her husband says," Phatak told IANS in an interview.

In Phatak's book, "The Untold Story of Seeta", Ram is vulnerable, emotional and someone who faces a major tussle between his role as a husband and as a king.

"I am trying to extenuate Ram of what many people think about him. In Ramcharitmanas, at the very beginning, when Parvati is roaming alone in a forest, she meets Ram who asks her why she is alone? This is purely out of concern... so how could such a man let his wife go?" asked Phatak.

"On the other hand, how could Sita, a pupil of great sage Gargi, have had no opinion of her own? These were some of the questions I set to ask myself and others who have grown up with what they have been told and retold over centuries," she added.