The Forest of Enchantments
The most hauntingly beautiful moment of the retelling of the Ramayana by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, through the eyes of Sita, is when she stands in the fire of purity, the flames about to engulf her. The epic could have ended here in triumph - Sita redeemed in the eyes of the gods, and her husband, her rightful position of the Queen restored, and the ending she truly deserved. But this does not happen, and the fire burns on.
In a twisted way, maybe this is the ending she deserves. She is now revealed, and every unanswered question now answered.
This begs a question in my mind: why does the story insist on breaking our hearts, and why it feels so unjust a conclusion? Could this be why the Ramayana has endured for millenia, through countless interpretations and retellings?
On Tragedy
Sita does not weep when she is doubted. She only weeps when she realises she will be doubted again and again.
Is the death of Sita not her rebellion? And all we can do is watch on, horrified. Maybe because we too, unknowingly, have been asked to prove something to the world, again and again, in the flames of our own invention.
Tragedy is not the abscense of happiness. It is the realisation that things that shape a character (you included, dear reader) which both shape them most deeply, and that which they cannot control. It’s important to reiterate - tragedy is not the bad that happens, but the realisation that it will. We may think it is the tragedy that Sita could not control what happens, but in the end, has she not?
Of the most important note is who the tragedy belongs to. It is power of the purest form - it belongs to those that are broken, and the ones we latch on to are the ones that are defiant still.
The stories we cannot forget
We keep coming back to tragedies we cannot forget, not because we glorify suffering, but because these stories tell us the truth. Some fates are not meant to be escaped, and we do not all end with happiness ever after. The world demands sacrifice, obedience and silence of us.
On Conclusion
Maybe the most beautiful thing about tragedy, is that the story is not yet over. A happy ending is a door closing, a conclusion, a finale. There is no door left ajar for a draft to flow in. But tragedy - that’s a door that could still creak in the wind.
We may tell ourselves that we want the knot that ties cleanly, and the last note of a song. But life seldom mirrors this. The stories that we turn to, time and time again, are the ones that refuse to let us look away long after they have seemingly concluded.
And perhaps, this is what we yearn for. To be defiant, to be seen and understood, in our own terms. Despite all that we have been through.