Writer retells the many Ramayanas

BANGALORE: The minutiae that make the Ramayana have inspired many retellings of the tales, said Samhita Arni, writer of the graphic novel Sita's Ramayana.
She said Jnanpith awardee Kannada writer Kuvempu also wrote a version in which he elaborated the story of Shambhuka, the dalit. Samhita was 'Retelling the Ramayana' at an interaction here on Thursday.
"Kuvempu rewrote the Ramayana because he couldn't accept why Rama killed Shambhuka.In Periyar's version, Ravana is the tragic hero," she said while elaborating oral, women and dalit traditions from which a different perspective of the epic has emerged.
"Sita's Ramayana was my first and I was intrigued by various versions and the spectacles of writers who narrated the epic in their own way," she said.
"Folk traditions hold Rama and Sita as gods and an ideal couple with values which is a powerful mechanism of spreading the word. Epic literature always has a storyteller and the listener and that's why people want to read the versions and retell the story. They read their own stories in these epics," she added.