Published Paper Details:

This paper attempts the re-envisioning of Ramayana through a postmodern reading of Amit Majmudar's Sitayana. Postmodernism as a theory opposes the traditional singular narratives and prefers mini-narratives. In this paper, the discussion proceeds with the different approaches brought by Jean-Francois Lyotard and Paul De Man. Along with this, the paper also defines what metanarratives are and how mini-narratives are better preferred to metanarratives. The objective of this paper is to narrate the events leading up to the epic battle of Lanka and the events following it. In contrast to the usual route, the writer has focused on the journey of the characters rather than the formation of the plot. Since the entire novel is based on the display of a form of resistance that is mainly portrayed by the character of Sita, it is titled Sitayana. The narrative follows her journey from Mithila to Ayodhya, to Lanka, back to Ayodhya, and finally the ultimate journey, into the Earth itself. To break the conventional streak of calling Ramayana, the author has chosen the title Sitayana, though it does not restrict itself to her narration and progress. Sitayana is a novel that tells the events of Ramayana, even by eliminating the hero's presence. The three main characters who narrate the majority portion of the story are Sita, followed by Hanuman and finally the anti-hero, Ravana. The term anti-hero is important here because according to theatre actor Tom Hiddleston, "Every villain is a hero in his own mind." It is only the perspective that shifts and postmodernism focus on exactly this. The kaleidoscopic view of the incidents and the jumbled manner in which it is narrated by different characters provides an order among the chaos and thread the events of the story in a sensible manner.