Epics and questions

 A book that nudges you to ask questions

Title: My story, my voice: Sita and Helen

Publisher: Tulika

Text: Shailee

Illustrations: Priyadarshini Banerjee

Price: 345/-

Warmly thanking Teacher Plus for publishing this and Tulika for the book.  

 

What is the book about? 

This question is best answered using two lines from the book:

“Two of mythology’s best-known women”

“What do we know of these women themselves”?

 

How did I find the book?

Few, if any, of you who read this will claim to be unfamiliar with either Sita or Helen. Films, television serials, comic books, religious texts, textbooks, stories by elders at home, songs or other sources would have led you to them. How many of you drew parallels between the two? This surely never occurred to me. And after reading and rereading the book, I wondered why it did not! This is where the book scores. Its ability to surprise, to nudge one to think.

This book takes you through Sita’s and Helen’s lives; though their eyes - a Sita interested in “court happenings”, Helen in “warfare” and a lot else. A Sita and Helen many of us possibly did not know about! This is done at a brisk pace without being text-heavy. Each of the six sections (birth, childhood, wedding, abduction, life in captivity, and the aftermath) talks about both Sita and Helen.

The book underscores the contradictions in their lives as well; the mother of her abductor becomes Helen’s “true friend” and Helen “wasn’t happy” when her brothers came to “rescue” her. Only one line is common across the two parallel stories. A line which succinctly brings out the crux of the book, a line which would not be difficult to come across today as well; “One day I was informed that I was going to be married.”

This is a book where the author and illustrator have taken the story ahead together. Colour schemes for both the characters are different, as are their dresses and jewellery. The eyes of the different characters had me glued to the pages! Page numbers are absent; but then is there a need for page numbers in a page-turner like this?

How can we interpret this book with children and colleagues?

This is a book that can be perceived as somewhat risky and tricky – especially with children - in today’s times, when raising questions about religious beliefs and mythology are considered blasphemous. However, it can also be looked upon as a thought-provoking, question-provoking tool with children of different ages and aptitudes, and of course, with adults too. A book very much welcome!

First of all, this book can have us discuss plurality with children. Ramanujan in his essay Three Hundred Ramayans says, “The number of Ramayanas and the range of their influence in South and Southeast Asia over the past twenty-five hundred years or more are astonishing.” Helen too has been a part of multiple plays and epics including those by Homer, Euripides, and Shakespeare. We can discuss whether stories, like poems, can be interpreted in multiple ways? If characters within a story can be looked upon differently? Is it normal to have opinions and perspectives that are different from others, from the majority? Are our stories, epics open to questions? Do epics, stories change with time?

Can this book encourage us to read these and other epics? To interpret them for ourselves? To explore more about ‘Trojan horse’, ‘Achilles heel’ and other idioms? To read?

How do our stories, epics look at the common people, the majority? Those neither of royal pedigree, nor of elite background. What about the day-to-day lives, family needs, or livelihoods of these people that are disrupted when an entire city is under siege for a decade or is set on fire? Would the epics be possible without them? Are we aware how we, today, perceive the proverbial “man (or woman) on the street”?

How is it that Sita and Helen have so much in common? Are there other themes and elements that are common across our epics? What could be the reasons?

It would also be fun to just let children look at the illustrations and come up with their own interpretations.