Snag The Missing Queen Written By Samhita Arni Print

always had a lovehate relationship with the Ramayana, As a child I found it boring as compared to the Mahabharata which seemed colourful and intriguing in contrast with its huge cast of characters and fast pace.
As a teenager, the boredom turned to disdain for Ram, whom I found weak, for Sita who irritated me with her devotion to said weak husband, for Lakshman, who thought nothing of abandoning his blameless wife in favour of said weak brother.
. . you get the picture! I was young and rebellious and the virtues of patience and sacrifice and the consequences of choice were lost on me.


Over the years, I confess I did little to improve my understanding of the myth and till today the Mahabharata remains my favourite epic, but with age and life experience, has come a semblance of understanding for the nuanced story that is the Ramayana.
Ashok Banker's vividly reimagined interpretation helped the process, although by Volume, the repetitive style had begun to irritate.
Still, the concept was original and I enjoyed having the godlike Ram of my childhood presented as a human, a prince and an extraordinary human no doubt, but still believable.
He was flawed and I understood that,

Now, here comes another interpretation, although perhaps perspective is a better word, from Samhita Arni, Unsurprisingly focusing on the women in the epic, it tells the story of a nameless journalist in search of Sita.
Such a clever piece of writing Sam! The essential skeleton of the epic remains but is reimagined in a more contemporary and relatable setting.
Ayoydhya could be any city, Ram every man, Sita every woman, The story explores the consequences of war and power and how one man's truth is another man's falsehood.
It struck me as particularly relevant given the times we live in!

I love that Sam turns everything on its head and yet leaves us free to interpret, asking us only to question, to delve and to seek our own truths.
As I read, I recognised the familiar characters but saw them in a new light, I became the narrator, searching for the truth as I saw it and yet what is the truth but perspective

I'm lucky enough to have met Sam several times and as I read the book I heard her voice! This would be a great Book Club pick too.
An enjoyable read and a quick one too! Finished it in an afternoon If you like the Ramayana and even if you don't Read it! A nameless TV journalist, dares to do the impossible, on national television she asks 'Where is Sita' From then on the cat and mouse game of seeking the truth begins.
Set in the citystate where Ram is the beloved king who is trying to bring Democracy, Ayodhya is an ever growing kingdom that ate up Lanka's resources after defeating Ravan, In it's omnivorous quest to be the shining example of development, many have been trampled,

Our journalist keeps discovering secrets and ends up connecting dots to the other side of the story.
From queen to princess she meets them all in her search for Sita,

The book begins with Kaikeyi, within first three pages I was glued, But I resisted, I savoured this book for almost two months, I read it super slow because I didn't want it to end.


Every queen and princess has something to say Surpanakha, Urmila, Trijatha, I badly wanted Mandodari to get her say too, I loved the history behind Black Shirts and LLF, because they resonate so much with conditions and histories of North East India, and Jharkhand, and Chhattisgarh

I have a soft spot for Samhita Arni, her Sita's Ramayana and Mahabharata: A Child's View were intriguing and I love rereading them.
The Missing Queen surpassed her previous storytelling in matter of language and political urgency, The book is definitely a retelling of Ramayana, but it's so much more! The book is so small and well written but also so well edited, the use of em dashes made me so happy.
This is iceberg style at its finest, so many things are implied but never forced fed to the readers.
Any reader young or old would understand what the author is trying to make us see through this story.


The book is a feminist story and a suspense novel that brings out the horror of mass denial and self induced cultural amnesia.
It is also is an environmental story, as it keeps asking it's readers what is the price of development that we crave so badly Exciting.
But I had more expectations, Tremendous contemporary relevance. There is something about Ramayana that makes it less fascinating for me than Mahabharatha, However, interpretations like Blue by Sharan M and Asura partially made me get interested in the epic a little more because of their treatment of the characters as those with grey shades.


The Missing Queen is a book whose cover drew me to it at first, and then the premise when I read the blurb.
Ramayana set in a modern day scenario without much change

in the characters or the sequence of events is what The Missing Queen is about.
It is no Sherlock mystery that Sita is the queen in focus, but the ease with which the author Samhita Arni fits in the events of Ramayana seamlessly with a few twists is indeed commendable.
Note that this is not in the form of how Shashi Tharoor's Great Indian Novel fits the characters of Mahabharatha in a different timeframe.


A quick read with some layered connotations and a little more! Arni's idea of transposing the Ramayana onto modern times is not new, but she does it well, especially since she focuses on the question of why Sita left.
However, the book could have done with more meat most of the characters remain sketchy, we only have the faintest idea of the geography that Arni is operating in, and some very very important questions remain not just unanswered, but unasked.
I had really high hopes from this, Considering that I had already read the authors another book 'Sita's Ramayana', I had thought this would be just as good.


It had started on a good note, I liked how it had a lot of modern sub plots, bringing in political and cultural references, But it was too much, and not explained enough, Its great to see someone putting in a womans perspective, Still I wish the author had put in just as much effort in giving some meat to the mens characters.
I like mythological retellings for the different perspectives they provide to the story we know, This one sets the characters of the Ramayana in the modern times and includes a quest by a journalist to find Sita after she disappeared from the palace and Ram's life.

But it seemed to me like the version of the epic put forth here, the questions raised, are too imaginative and turn the story on its head! It attempts to ask some pertinent questions about the status of the women of the epic but ends up giving some answers that, to me, seemed baseless and hence unsatisfactory.

One very prominent example is repeatedly placing the blame for the war that destroyed Lanka on the shoulders of Sita, making her the sole person responsible, as if she orchestrated the whole thing and her rescue should have never been undertaken at such a cost! While the question of whether so many lives should have been sacrificed for one woman may seem relevant in general, the intentions this retelling ascribes to her captor are unbelievable as they are totally unrelated to the story as we know it.

Many such things made this a disappointing read for me, .