Sri: Poojya Sri Rama, Please accept my pranams. You know me very well as one among your countless creations and I know very well that I am one of those lowly creatures who is not even qualified to be known as your devotee. You are Greatness unparalleled, but I am a manda-buddhin who knows not what to think about, how to talk and what to talk. It is my fervent wish that this confession of mine would absolve me of any apacharam that I will commit during the course of this letter. I am apprehensive of committing apacharam because in this letter I am going to question the way you have fashioned Rama avatharam. Don?t think that I am going to raise the same old bogey of accusation on agni pariksha. I for one am totally convinced that you didn?t mean to demean or hurt your priya-bhAryaL in having asked her to undergo agni-pariksha. I do understand, just as you, that agni can do no harm to Sita. This was well indicated twice in Sundhara Khandam, when Sita invoked Agni deva not to harm Hanuman when his tail was set on fire and when the fire spread by Hanuman in Lanka did not touch her. You know very well, as we too came to know after reading this khandam that Sita is one who can burn Agni Himself. Knowing this very well, you asked for and allowed agni-pariksha for Sita. So the cause of my vishanam is not this. It is something else. It is about why Sita had to suffer at all ? suffer the pangs of separation from you. Remember she is one who we believe is inseparable from you and lives forever in your heart which is her permanent abode. You too suffered, but we have been told of a previous incident in which you as Vishnu incurred a curse from a Rishi (I am unable to quote the name) when you killed his wife with your Chakrayudha for having given abhayam to the one who was the target of your chakrayudha. As one untouched by curses and such other things, you decided to use it as an alibi during Rama avathara. Tell me, in what way your dear better ?half was drawn into this? You may say that as your patni, she is also bound to share the good and bad or whatever of that avathara. But did it stop with just separation from you? Didn?t she suffer more than you? What previous karma (though unbinding) of hers can you quote to account for the humiliation and danger she suffered to her integrity and modesty, for the fear, for the helplessness and for all those terrible emotions she underwent in Ashoka vana? I am asking the same questions that Sita asked. What was the pApam she did in her previous births? What was the dhosham she had as to suffer like that? O, is it right to leave her among the demons, threatened by Ravana? Is it right to leave her untended, unclean and without AbhushaN ? the one who is ever willing to shower on us all the bounties? If you had willed you could have immediately released her from her plight. Is it because, as Sita herself had said, she committed an apacharam to you? It is true that in order to take a dig at you, when you refused to take her along during vana vasa, she lamented that her father had her married to you without knowing that you are a woman in man?s garb(!) Hey Rama, did you take this accusation seriously? Don?t you know that this is the last astra that we, the womenfolk use whenever the husband refuses to see our point of view. I have said like this to my husband and he has not done any harm to me in retribution. I am sure you too didn?t mind Sita?s accusation at that time. Then, why did you allow her to suffer? I know you would come out with reasons such as making mankind understand certain values of living, the lofty ideal of sharanagathi, highlighting the Purushakara of Piratti and the like. Let me remind you that you succeeded in teaching these in other avatars too, but without having to put your wife in such distress. In fact you came to the world without your wife on 8 out of 10 occasions (avatars). Even in Krishna avathara, you didn?t make your wives suffer humiliation in the hands of a demon like Ravana. My question is why you made a script in the first place that held your wife, our mAtha, in such a sorry state of affairs. You have all the power to make a story as you wish and a script as you like. You could have made the story line for Sita differently. Certainly if I were to be in your place and enjoyed all the freedom to create a story line of my choice, I would not have even in my dreams thought of the terrible incidents to happen to my mother Sita. Hey Rama, why couldn?t you think differently? You have disappointed us in another way also. Rama avatar is the only avatar in which you came to earth with your dear wife and were all set to live a human life like us throughout the period you were here. Why did you spoil it by your own design, Rama? Why did you rob us of the joy of thinking about you and Sita as wonderful couple who came to live like us and lived happily ever through your stay here? I always compare you with the Sun and Sita with the Moon and am fascinated to watch these celestial objects in the sky. When Shukra came too close to the Moon about one and a half ago and the crescent moon seemed to greet Shukra who was in his brightest splendor then, I imagined how our mother Sita is benevolent, calm, cool and has a broad mind to allow shukra to steal the show even while she was sailing in all dignity. But a fortnight later I was witness to your fury when you seemed not to let shukra posses any glory as he traveled past you. The sparkling shukra looked like a mere dot on your face, so small and unimportant. At that time I was really awe-struck by your power to vanquish the ego of the asura-guru. But now thinking about the deplorable incidents you assigned for Sita to undergo, hey Rama, I am sorry to say that the dot (of asura-guru) indeed looked like a blot on your face. You could have handled the asura in Ramayana differently, not necessarily by making your beloved wife, our Jagan-mAtha a scapegoat! I don?t find fault with you for any of the popularly known debatable issues such as Vali vadam and agni-pariksha. But I do fault you for having made our mAtha suffer ignominy and indescribable distress. If you can conceive of such worst scenario for your wife herself, where will we all go? What difficulties have you decided for us? Are you right in having scripted a tough scenario for Sita? Tell me Rama, tell me. Truly yours, Jayasree Saranathan __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! 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