KOCHI: Every creation is a reflection of the thought process of its creator and this is true in the case of Kumaranasan's 'Chinthavishtayaya Sita'. As the literary world celebrates the 100th anniversary of one of the famous works of the mahakavi, poets and students gathered at the Malayalam Department of Maharaja's College to ponder on the different manner in which the poet has featured Sita.
According to writer Balachandran Chullikad, Sita portrayed by Valmiki in Ramayana and Kalidas in Raghuvamsham were docile and all accepting.
"However, Kumaranasan's Sita never cowers down before injustice. She believes in questioning the system which she finds is mired in injustice. This attitude transforms her personality like one born of fire," said Chullikad while giving a talk on Kumaranasan's 'Chinthavishtayaya Sita' at a talk organised by Mozhi, the cultural group of the department of Malayalam of Maharaja's College.
He said there are many versions of Ramayana. "It is an epic that flourishes in the heart of every Indian. It can be called an epic which has been created by the Indian philosophical minds to explain and analyse the happenings in the world," he said.
According to him, Ramakatha is not history. "The events that are mentioned in Ramayana can't be termed as historical ones. It can be termed as a philosophical history that holds the public's mind in sway," he said.
According to poet M K Ramanujan, there are over 300 versions of Ramayanam, he said. "But I believe that there are over 33 crore versions of Ramayanam in the world. Every person who has either read or heard Ramayanam creates his own version of the same in his mind," he said.