Sita’s Veil

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Sita’s Veil

Sita’s Veil, Anamika’s intimate, first-person portrayal of Sita, is perfectly matched with Nishtha Gautam’s lively, fluid translation. When these two join hands, we feel a closeness to that long-ago world as though it has come to life in the present moment and we are sitting in the forest, by Sita’s side, chatting with her and helping her write her letters to Ayodhya.

Dr. Daisy Rockwell

Booker Prize winning translator

“India,” writes Anamika while introducing her seminal Sitayan—the Ramayan retold from Sita’s perspective—“is the singular exception where mythological constructs have not gone to museums.” For this is a land steeped in the cadences and lyricisms of our great itihasas, our lanes resounding with those chaupais and shlokas, streets stalked by those larger than life characters, and political discourse peppered with metaphorical references to their trials and triumphs.

Having undertaken the composition of this work under circumstances no less mythical— anchored in the heartache of losing two beloved parents, mavericks both, one of whose last wishes was that she complete this novel—Anamika has created a Sita for our times. Emerging from her “mother’s version of … multiple folk retellings” of our epics, Anamika’s Sita exemplifies what she calls an “integrated feminism,” which emphasises “sensitisation and assimilation,” alongside rescuing men from the stifling clutches of hypermasculinity that our society foists upon them. So it is that she brings to life a saga that is as personal as it is political, speaking as much to its time as to ours, where Sita—

“a scholarly single mother”—is a rebel with a cause, transcending barriers and reminding the men around her, including the illustrious Maryada Puroshottam himself, of the pitfalls of doubting the character of “women of substance” such as herself.

Rendered in exquisite English by Nishtha, the prose aglow with the vigour and verve, the poignancy and profundity, of the original, Sita’s Veil is a searing reminder that perhaps because of our political weaponisation of the Ramayan, we have forgotten that at its heart, this eternal epic is a call to action—beckoning us to ensure equality between women and men; and strive towards greater progress together, without leaving anyone behind.

Dr. Shashi Tharoor

Author, Politician

In lyrical prose, faithful to the lilting cadences of (Anamika’s) Hindi original, Nishtha Gautam recreates the mahakavya of modern times, Sitayan, the story of the Ramayan from the perspective of Mithila-born Sita… Mother Courage, born from the bosom of the Earth, speaks in the pages of this book: from behind a blade of grass, her only veil.

Dr. Rakhshanda Jalil

Writer, Translator, Literary Historian

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