Daughter of fire: An extract from 'The Forest of Enchantments' by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Later, the bards would sing of the miracle that occurred. Agni, the fire-god himself, appeared and declared my innocence, putting my hand into Ram’s as though this was our second wedding. And Ram — who’d fallen to the ground, crazed with grief, once I’d disappeared into the flames — embraced me, whispering apologies and love, begging my understanding. 

‘The virtue of the queen of Ayodhya has to be above all suspicion. You see how important that is, don’t you, my dearest?’ he said, his voice full of entreaty. ‘And now you’ve proved it in a way that can never be questioned!’ 

And I, nestled against his chest after our long separation, dazed yet triumphant as the gods rained celestial flowers upon us and roar upon roar of jubilation rose from the crowd around us, focussed only on his dear, familiar heartbeat, SitaRamSitaRamSitaRam. 

Truly love is the strongest intoxicant of them all, the drink of deepest oblivion. Else how could I have forgiven him so quickly for what he’d done? 

No. Love is the spade with which we bury, deep inside our being, the things that we cannot bear to remember, cannot bear anyone else to know. But some of them remain. And they rise to the surface when we least expect them. 

Here is one such thing: the terrible, maddening pain that engulfed my entire body when I entered the fire. I had to use every shred of willpower to keep myself from running out, screaming. The anguish with which I prayed for death to release me. The anger I felt that I, who was innocent, should be made to suffer in this way. My agony was timeless — I don’t know, in terms of human measurement, how long it lasted. But I do know this: in that agonizing trial, I was transformed. 

Perhaps that was why I had to endure pain — because true transformation can only happen in the crucible of suffering. All impurities fall away from gold only when it’s heated to melting. 

By the time the gods intervened, I was no longer just the Sita of old: daughter of earth, strong and silent, patient and deep, forbearing and forgiving. I was something else, too. 

The fire-god himself acknowledged this change. Daughter, he called me. 

Yes, I was now Sita, daughter of fire. 

But I didn’t know yet what this meant. 

– Price & Publisher: Rs 499, Harper Collins