Sita in the City: the Ramayana's Heroine in New York

Sita in the City The Ramayana's Heroine in New York Anne Murphy and Shana Sippy N April 1998 an exhibition entitled Sita in the City (curated by the authors) was held in Columbia I IUniversity’s Low Memorial Library to explore the many ways the Ramayana’s heroine has been imagined in New York, among the diverse South Asian communities which call the city home. Through text drawn from interviews with members of these communities, as well as with others, and through artwork and photographs which reveal the many visual representations of Sita in the New York area, the exhibition attempted to paint a portrait of the ways in which Sita is imagined and made meaningful to people in New York. The material presented in this article formed the core of Sita in the City, and was gathered in two months of intensive research in the New York area. S anyone aware of the from 500 BCE to the present day, and immigrants understand their lives literary and cultural in different places, from Ball to and the models that inform them. A traditions of South Asia London, and the Sita of New York “Sita is my second mother,” explains knows, Sita is the heroine of the City today is no exception. In the new a thirteen-year-old girl at the Geeta ancient epic, the Ramayana, and the interpretive and creative context that Temple in Elmhurst, Queens, while wife of the epic’s hero, Rama. The New York represents, Sita is a means her mother sees Sita as a perfect role Ramayana is a living text, told and through which some South Asian model for girls, given the prevalence retold in ritual and of teenage pregnancy and performance traditions AIDS in a city like New York. throughout the world. Sita too For others, such as a member has many manifestations, like of a support group at Sakhi her husband Rama, and is for South Asian Women, an more than just a literary organisation working against figure. This is not only the domestic violence, Sita is “a case in South Asia, where the lousy role model for women.” events of the Ramayana are In New York City, people said to have taken place, but speak of Sita as having also for the many South and struggled with the same Southeast Asians who reside kinds of issues they now face outside their ancestral lands in their own lives, drawing (in what is called “the upon a set of “traditional” diaspora”). The perspectives motifs from a thousands-of- of people involved with years old tradition known to South Asian traditions in us through the works of New York can be added to the Valmiki, Kampan, and field of interpre-tations of the Tulsidas, as well as countless “Sita tradition,” in a new other poets, religious environment. thinkers, and artists. Sita and her story have Sita in the Metropolis The thoughts and images taken many forms over time, VENANTIUS J. PINTO presented here are part of a No. 120 17 larger conversation: a conversation about models and ideals; models to construct and deconstruct, to emulate or reject, to reconfigure or maintain in different settings; tellings new and old. These conversations take on a distinctive form in New York, and this article provides only a glimpse into the range of meanings created about Sita. Situating Sita It’s no surprise that Sita takes on a life in New York, as it is home to the largest South Asian community in North America. Sita was carried in the stories, images, objects, and memories of the South Asians who have come to the city in significant numbers throughout the last century, primarily Sita Faith since the Immigration Act of 1965. Her this image as a representation of Sita cigarette, Sita sits among the buildings, image and story-be it in posters, books herself, or as a window into the ways adorned with a tattoo in the shape of or murtis-can be purchased in stores communities adapt and reformulate Rama’s bow and arrow. Her foot breaks catering to New Yorkers with eclectic “tradition” in new environments. Thus, the barrier of the rectangular picture tastes, and in shops primarily selling for the mother we referred to above, frame, reminiscent of Pahari (Punjab Indian groceries, books, and ritual Sita is a powerful role model for girls in Hills) and Rajput miniature painting objects to South Asian immigrants. Sita the United States, given some of the conventions, and the bold colours is at home in many of New York’s Hindu challenges that they face here. In used are clearly reminiscent of the temples, on the bookshelves of libraries Pinto’s piece, Sita has been transformed popular poster prints of deities that are where her story is available in a range and re-situated, and sits in Times so common in South Asia and its of languages and tellings, and in the Square, surrounded by colourful diasporic communities. She is not city’s art galleries and museums, where billboards which sport marriage ads. dressed in the garb of Sita in ages past, contemporary art and miniature Her size and pose create a tension but wears clothing befitting a young paintings depicting her are displayed. between her and the environment, and trendy New Yorker. This print, then, While all those who carried Sita’s story demanding that she be taken on her clearly addresses the ways in which Sita or image with them may not agree about own terms. With her (intentionally) unlit is changing in the New York landscape. how she should be understood, her It is not only here that Sita takes on presence is undeniable. As one artist a special meaning in relation to a put it, “Sita and Rama are like our family, The Sita corrective can be specific set of geographically and we grew up with them.” a model for all women culturally defined circumstances. In The way in which Sita is described everywhere, on every cont- general, members of the Indo- in the language and context of Caribbean community speak of the contemporary times-whether that be by inent, in every country. I importance of Sita as a model to counter calling her a divorcee, a battered am not talking only about British colonial power. Kama Singh of woman, a strong single mother, or a Hindus or Indian women. the Raj Kumari Cultural Center (an Indo- woman who’s monogamy and Caribbean cultural organisation) spoke faithfulness is a model for teenagers in You know, Sita is of how Sita and Rama were the “most this day and age of sexually transmitted especially important prominent role models” held up by the diseases - is conveyed in Venantius because there is so many Hindu priests and the orthodoxy in Pinto’s print Sita in the Metropolis. Guyana, at a time when cultural This piece by the New York-based corrupting influences now continuity and integrity were difficult Goanese artist powerfully articulates — violence, drugs and all to maintain. He emphasised that Sita what it means to think about Sita as a that... and Rama remain models for members part of New York City. We can interpret of the community in the United States, 18 MANUSHI amid a new set of cultural challenges. diaspora. In contrast to those who Overtly political understandings of Sita According to my under- evaluated Sita as a positive model, and Rama were not prevalent outside standing, Sita is the main she argued that a composite figure, of the Indo-Caribbean communities we figure in the Ramayana. I like Sita, is “detrimental to women’s encountered in New York, but it is own empowerment,” as women are certainly the case that the Ramayana would consider her more doomed to failure when they “don’t tradition has taken a deeply political important than anyone fit into the narrow boundaries” form in South Asia in the recent past. else... She is shakti created by these idealised notions. Most tellings of the Ramayana begin In visual terms, Anand Patole’s and end in Ayodhya, and, as is well (power). She's the one painting, Good and Evil, highlights a known, the city became a flash-point reason all the events in the tension in Sita’s story: Rama and for conflict in connection with a Ramayana took place. The Ravana stand in opposition to each particularly chauvinistic and other, and Sita stands in the middle discriminatory rendition of the story of whole story, in fact, diminutively to the side of Rama. Sita Rama in the 1980’s and 90’s. Yet, revolves around her shakti. acts as the battleground upon which although these events were mentioned She started every-thing Rama and Ravana, good and evil, fight. in some of the interviews, discussion She is the real avatara. This image also reflects the of nationalist issues was for the most sentiments of many New Yorkers; part absent. Other issues emerged as Shastriji, The Hindu when we asked people about Sita, we constant themes: notions of how Center, New York. were, by extension, asking about Rama women “should” and do behave in and the entire Ramayana tradition. As society, and what it means to reclaim people speak about Sita they tend to old role models and/or find new ones very strong woman,” or as an focus on her relationships with other in the present day. Sita and the assertive woman who, in the end, told figures in the Ramayana, just as they Ramayana narrative stand at the center Rama: “You do what you want, I am stress key scenes in the narrative which of the discussion of these issues, and, gone!” Others see Sita as an define her character.

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