The Forest of Enchantments: A Retold Saga in Mythopoesis

Abstract

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, the starring gem in South Asian Diasporic fiction, has evoked the essential goodness of human heart through the pathetic journey of exile and forced migration. But apart from her genius in Diasporic literature, she has also raised voices for those epic heroines who never got a chance to demand for their individuality in the original epic. To make us realise their importance, she has administered magical realism along with the crudity of pragmatism and heart-rending naturalism and purposefully woven the magical world through her imaginative narration and lucidity of incorporating an alternated reality full of charm and captivating allurements. Her creative forte represents a daring contradiction between the sensory and the illusory ways and worlds of experience engaging her literary personages supported by a harmonious coexistence of ‘magical fantasy’ by making the humdrum wondrous and the factualspectacular. Through the character of Sita, the emblem of ceaseless suffering, Divakaruni has tried to offer a tribute to this legendary soul, where she not only protests against her unlawful desertion, but also points to the troublesome sufferings of other benign victims like Kaushalya, Sumitra, Urmila, Sarama, Mandodari and Ahalya.