I would go so far as to say that if Indian woman were like Sita. They would probably better off than the helpless, unambitious trodden upon specimens of womanhood that TV churns out every day all after Sita was a woman with incredible fortitude and strength a character a woman who could wield Shiva bow‘s persuade her husband Ram to take her along into exile defy Ravana while in his capacity and eventually reject Ram preferring to leave the world rather than live with after a second call to prove her innocence.

The division bench have meant to teach a lesson in subjugation to Indian woman with their much-debated observation that wises should be like sita who left everything and followed her husband Lord Ram to a forest and stayed there for 14 year but in the ultimate analysis it all depends on how one look at sita subservient and loyal. Or strong and willful did she follow Ram as a docile creature because she had to or as an independent spirited young wife who wanted to how did the learned judges fall prey to common stereotypes and clichés that assume sita was nothing more than a hapless weak woman?

As the most who have read the Ramayana well see it sita was very much her own woman all thought her extraordinary trails and tribulations she retained her dignity her independent thinking and her iron will all through exile captivity banishment single motherhood and the final most telling of them all her defiant furious yet quiet rejection of that epitome of ideal manhood.

But not every woman can be sita nor should be extraordinary circumstances alone can make an epic heroine out of an ordinary woman it is unfair to expect today woman to be Sita or for that master. Draupadi, kunti or even Maharani of Jhansi, Noor jehan why should a woman be like anyone else Why fall prey to stereotypes and live life trying to emulate someone with completely different compulsions and circumstances?

Instead she should be try and be true to her own self to her motivations her dreams her compulsions and circumstances. A sacrificial docile woman who is forced to follow her husband wherever he gets posted as the Bombay high court ordered is as today as would be a cry to mother earth to open up to prove her fidelity. it is almost as anachronistic as the bahus who decorate our television screens with meaningless glitter portraying distorted single dimensional from our epics and mythology play acting to a deep-rooted particular mindset on television.
The TV bahus refuses to cross her Lakshman rekha forgetting that sita did cross the original one. She obeys her husband and make no demands forgetting sita managed to make Ram do her bidding she went to exile with him. Insisted he go after the golden deer and ordered Lakshman to go after him when she heard his cries the TV bahus tolerates all unfairness and forgives her husband any misdemeanor forgetting that sita walked out of Ram’s life without a word when he asked for a second public test.

So much for paying Sita in tele-life Indian woman need out not follow any one role model but can pick and choose certain characteristics from the myriad role model that our mythology epics and history give us …. No one role model would suit the multi-faceted Indian woman today.