Lord Rama's Reply

By Niranjan Mudholkar

O Sita!

Forgive me not,

For I have indeed failed you. I am your culprit!

You need not stay with this God who endeavoured to be ‘the ideal man’!

But remember, this God also lived like ‘an ordinary human’!

O Sita!

I became complete only when I discovered you.

But did you ever discover this Rama?

Indeed, you walked by my side in my troubled days

And shared my agony as well as pain.

But now, you refuse to do so.

Fair enough!

Sita, My Beloved,

Your anger is very much justified.

But when you curse me for failing

To do what I should have done and

For doing what I should not have done,

Forget not that I also fought a war for you.

Forget not that I floated stones on the ocean to reach you!

Forget not to see those mountains and valleys, those birds and trees,

Whom I asked like a mad man,

“Have you seen her? Have you seen my Sita?”

“This Rama cannot live without his Sita?”

“Have you seen her?”

Those birds still sing of my love for you.

Those trees are still warm with my embraces,

Those birds still sing of our togetherness,

And my cry “Sita, Sita, Sita,” still echoes in those mountains and valleys.

But forgive me not!

For I forced you into the fire ordeal (so they say),

For I drove you out of our home (so they say).

Not that the fire burnt me less,

Not that the home comforted me.

But forgive me not! Forgive me not and leave me.

For this loneliness is now my duty

And pain my responsibility.

No…I won’t trouble you to share them.

Your idol can do that!

Who else can take your place?

My hands have indeed been rough

But made them so should not bother you.

So forgive me not! Leave me and go to your mother.

At least you have some place to go!

But I shall never call it abandonment!

By Niranjan Mudholkar