Sons of Sita

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Ten years have passed since Rama did the unthinkable and banished Sita. Now, she spends her days in the remote forest ashram of Maharishi Valmiki, training her sons at the arts of war, turning them into peerless warriors of exceptional acumen and prowess. To the sorrow of many, they seem unlikely to ever cross paths with their estranged father. Yet destiny works in unexpected ways. Rama's growing ambitions and his war- mongering advisors motivate him to launch the Ashwamedha yajna. The mightiest Ayodhyan army ever assembled follows the sacred stallion in a campaign of conquest that seems unstoppable until a pair of improbable obstacles arises. Defying the military might of Ayodhya and the emperorship of Rama himself, two young striplings capture the Ashwamedha horse and challenge the great army. To Rama's chagrin, the challengers turn out to be none other than his own estranged offspring: the Sons of Sita!

Ashok Kumar Banker's internationally acclaimed Ramayana Series® (of which this book is an epic conclusion) has been hailed by critics as a milestone (India Today) and a magnificently rendered labour of love (Outlook). It is arguably the most popular English- language retelling of the ancient Sanskrit epic. His work has been published in fifty-six countries, a dozen languages, several hundred reprint editions with over a million copies of his books currently in print.

Banker is credited with having heralded the resurgence of public interest in Indian mythology, for being the author of the first Indian TV series in English and co-writer of the first Malaysian TV series in English, and author of the first Indian e-book, among other firsts. He is one of the few living Indian authors whose contribution to Indian literature is acknowledged in The Picador Book of Modern Indian Writing and The Vintage Anthology of Indian Literature.

So here we are again in Ayodhya. The question is why. In late 2004, when I wrote the last pages of King of Ayodhya, I was sure I was done with the Ramayana Series. Two years later, when the book went to press, I wrote an Afterword that confidently stated that the series was over and even gave my reasons for not writing the part of the story that is known as Uttara Kaand in the Valmiki Ramayana. Next stop, Hastinapura, I said. And then went back to work on my Mba. No, not a business degree; that's just my personalised term for my retelling of The Mahabharata, a mammoth project by any standards, and equivalent to several degree courses! At a projected ten volumes of over 1000 pages in hardcover each, aiming to cover ALL the material in the original eighteen Sanskrit parvas, it was enough to occupy me (or several dozen other writers) for years if not decades. It should have been reason enough for me to wave goodbye to the Ramayana forever, hop on the slow train to Epic India and never look back.

But life has a way of deciding where and when to stop the train. And sometimes, looking back, most of the stops that really matter in the end, turn out to be unscheduled ones.

That's how it was with me and the tale of maryada purushottam.