Sab ki Sita

Sab ki Sita began with a simple curiosity: what relationships did different beings in the Katha have with Sita?

The series was not undertaken to construct a study of Sita as an individual, nor to explore Sita and Shri Rama as complementary personalities. Instead, we stayed with particular relationships and encounters in the text and listened to what became visible within them.

Janak ki Sita, Hanuman ki Sita or Ravana ki Sita were not different views from which we were trying to assemble a single portrait of Sita. Each encounter existed within its own circumstances, history and movement in the Katha. The relationship itself asked to be attended to.

Sab ki Sita names the relational ground from which this series approached the Katha.

The “ki” in Janak ki Sita, Hanuman ki Sita, Agni ki Sita, Trijata ki Sita, Ravana ki Sita or Ram ki Sita names a relationship; it does not name possession. These relationships arose from very different circumstances and carried different histories, distances, affections, responsibilities, conflicts, recognitions and forms of presence.

Nor does the title mean that each relationship gives us a different Sita, or that together they produce a complete understanding of her.

Here, the relationship itself was the field of attention. We stayed with each relationship within the circumstances in which the text gave it to us, without turning those encounters into possession or a single definition of Sita.

We were trying to listen to each relationship as the text presented it: what brought the beings into relation with Sita, what circumstances held that relationship, how they approached or responded to one another, and what happened within the encounter.

We were not trying to study Sita as a whole, construct a portrait of her as an individual, or place a lens on her conduct. Our attention remained with Sita within the particular relationship before us.

Sometimes there was affection, recognition, care or reassurance; elsewhere there could be separation, threat, refusal or conflict. We tried to let those differences remain rather than make the relationships say the same thing.

Sita’s words, silences, responses and choices were encountered where the text placed them. They were not collected as evidence towards a larger conclusion about Sita or her conduct.

We were listening less for “Who is Sita?” and more carefully to “What is happening here, in this particular encounter with Sita?”

We selected places in the text where a relationship with Sita became possible to stay with closely.

We were not trying to assemble the most important people in Sita’s life, represent every kind of relationship, or build a sequence from which a complete picture of Sita could emerge. What mattered was whether an encounter gave us enough textual ground to remain with that relationship and its circumstances.

Some relationships had existed long before the moment we entered them, as with Janak or Shri Rama. Some emerged through a particular meeting, as with Hanuman, Anusuya or Trijata. Agni opened an unusual relational space; Ravana brought conflict, captivity and refusal; the women encountered during vanvas opened another kind of relationship altogether.

The moment selected was one in which that particular relationship could be heard closely from the text available to us. Sometimes this meant staying with a small encounter rather than attempting to represent everything that existed between two beings.

The selection was therefore neither exhaustive nor representative. Other relationships, other moments and other ways of studying Sita remain possible.

The series encountered relationships with Sita across very different circumstances of the Katha.

With Janak, we encountered a relationship that begins with finding Sita and carries the depth of father and daughter. Kaushalya brought Sita into another familial space. Anusuya met her during vanvas, while the women of the villages formed a brief relationship without requiring an established history.

With Hanuman, recognition, trust and communication unfolded under the extraordinary circumstances of Lanka. Trijata was present with Sita within Ashok Vatika. Agni opened a relationship of an entirely different order.

Not every relationship arose through affection or care. Ravana’s relationship with Sita existed through abduction, captivity, demand and Sita’s refusal. Ravana ki Sita did not turn captivity into possession.

With Shri Rama, we entered a relationship already central to the Katha without making Ram ki Sita the key through which all the other relationships should be understood.

Finally, Lanka ki Sita stretched the relational premise itself. Lanka is not a person standing in relationship with Sita. It is a place and circumstance within which Sita’s presence affects, and is encountered by, those around her.

These remained different relationships—parental, familial, momentary, intimate, compassionate, adversarial, unexpected, and sometimes difficult to place within any single category. One relationship was not required to explain another.

Our presentation began with the selected text. We chose the verses, translated them, arranged them for listening, and made musical and visual choices around them. These choices inevitably shaped how an encounter was received, so our effort was not to pretend that the presentation was neutral, but to keep it from becoming the conclusion.

We did not give all the relationships a common emotional language. Hanuman’s encounter could not be presented like Janak’s; Janak’s could not be presented like Ravana’s. We tried to let the circumstances and movement of each passage determine its presentation.

We also resisted familiar character templates where the selected text did not require them. One relationship did not have to become an ideal, another a lesson, or another a judgment.

Translation sought to make the selected text accessible rather than explain what Sita, another being, or their relationship ultimately meant. Music and visuals held the circumstances and emotional space of an encounter without prescribing what the listener should conclude from it.

We allowed each encounter to remain incomplete outside its own textual ground rather than use one episode to complete another.

The verses belong to the Katha; the selection, translation, music, visuals and manner in which we placed them before the listener were ours.

We did not claim that the relationships selected for Sab ki Sita exhaust Sita’s relationships in the Katha, or that taken together they explain her.

The series was not a study of Sita as a whole, a character analysis of Sita as an individual, or an examination of her conduct. Nor did we study Sita through Shri Rama or through a contemporary idea of individuality. Those are other possible encounters with the text, but they were not the study undertaken here.

We did not claim that “ki” signifies possession, or that every relationship reveals a different Sita. The differences belong to the relationships, their circumstances and the textual moments we selected.

Nor did Ram ki Sita make Shri Rama and Sita’s relationship the interpretive key for all the others, or turn the series into a study of their complementary personalities.

Finally, we did not claim that our selection, translation, music or visual presentation was the meaning of these encounters. Those were our choices as presenters, not conclusions that the text itself had made.

Sab ki Sita remained a particular study of particular encounters. Its boundaries were part of the study, not something the series attempted to overcome.

Sab ki Sita did not begin with a complete map of Sita’s relationships arranged in a predetermined order. One encounter led us towards another, and the relational question itself became wider as we progressed.

We began with Hanuman ki Sita, entering a relationship through seeking, observation, recognition, trust and communication. From there, Agni, Kaushalya, Anusuya, the women encountered during vanvas, Trijata and Janak progressively widened the field. The series was learning that “relationship with Sita” did not need to mean one particular kind of relationship.

With Ravana ki Sita, the title had to carry a relationship without turning relation into possession. With Ram ki Sita, we chose not to make Shri Rama and Sita’s relationship the centre from which all the others would be interpreted.

And then came Lanka ki Sita.

Lanka was not another being whose relationship with Sita could simply be placed alongside Janak, Hanuman, Trijata or Ravana. The field had widened from who is in relationship with Sita to what happens when Sita is present within an entire place and circumstance.

The sequencing therefore records something of our own learning. The relationships could not be reduced to a common form; “ki” could not mean possession; Shri Rama’s relationship need not become the governing lens; and eventually the relational field itself could extend beyond a named individual.

The series did not arrive at a larger definition of Sita as it progressed. Its question became larger instead.