Marriage is a surreal union of two different bodies, minds, and perceptions. This is what my one-liner review would be for this book.
One of the splendid Indian authors, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, writes the book which swoops us deep into her writing. I have always loved the way of the climax.
After reading The Palace of Illusions, which made me look into the history of the Author and her marvelous creation, this book was long due to be read.
Each book has a destiny to be read, but this book just laid around my shelf as I had benched it like Rinku Pandey is in the 20-20 World Cup. Finally, after nine months of shelving, I have finished this book in 15 days.
The story of Sitayan. We all know and have heard of Ramayana, but what about the most underrated character of Sita? How Ramayan is only focused on Ram killing Ravan and does not give much importance to the fact of the consequences.
It all makes sense now how we have been treating the victims of rape as impure and unfit to be in society.
The root lies in the history where Shri Ram gave up on his wife based on a rumor unknown. He banished his pregnant wife based on the doubts of the society.
What have we learned from our history has been followed up for a long until some poignant questions were raised by powerful women.
Women tend to sublime when they are wronged. I think no one put into the reality of Sita. Women were not that powerful to raise their voices for many centuries until now when only a few, like Chitra Banerjee, have narrated an eminent story of the unheard mind of Sita in a very subtle way.
I am truly satisfied with the climax. I hope many men and women read it to understand the indifference of respect between the two powerful characters in history.
The stories like these bring the change in the mindset and way of life in today’s society.
As I had begun the story with marriage, ‘Marriage is a surreal union of two different bodies, minds, and perceptions’. A marriage in most cultures pushes us to become one. It thus takes a lot of time to build an ideology of two humans to become one. In any case, one of the partners bends, mends, and has to agree with the other for something called Love.
We all have different perceptions of Love and for a long period, women have tried to change according to the various needs of their marriage.
But today women are asking to be heard and accepted too. To become a God, Sita had to endure everything in silence until she decided to stand up for herself.
We women don’t have to become Sita, as she stood up for the atrocities she suffered.
One thing I learned from The Forest Of Enchantment is that No Ram will come to save you from disrespect until you raise your arms to fight for your self-respect. Never let it be tarnished by anyone.
Book Name: The Forest of Enchantments
Author Name: Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Book Rating: *****
Concept & Visualisation: *****
Advice: Must Read
chapters
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You can read my first self published book here
The Real Influencer 
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