Lost Loves: Exploring Rama’s Anguish

I always thought I was human, that I was Rama, the son of Dasaratha. Tell me who I am. Where did I come from? Why am I here? —Valmiki Ramayana

The story of the Ramayana is a story of trial and tribulation, of the subtlety of right and wrong, of love and loss. The actions of Rama, the righteous but troubled prince of Ayodhya, have perplexed readers over the millennia. Lost Loves is an attempt to come to terms with Rama and with the Ramayana—a text that Arshia Sattar has translated to acclaim.

The essays in this book imagine what might have been the thoughts and feelings of Rama and Sita as they lived through those terrible years of trial and separation. They explore what happens to love in separation, and how public lives and private desires collide to devastating effect. By trying to see the events of their life as Rama and Sita may have seen them, Arshia Sattar makes the existential conflicts of the Ramayana fascinatingly relevant and freshly inspiring for the contemporary reader.

About the Author
Arshia Sattar’s acclaimed English translations of Valmiki’s Ramayana and the Kathasaritsagara are Penguin Classics. She has a PhD from the Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago and her areas of interest are Indian epics, mythology and the story traditions of the subcontinent. She teaches classical Indian literatures at various institutions all over India and writes on books for a number of journals and magazines.