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Secularized Sida: Performing Against Tradition and Nation

by Kiattipoom Nantanukul

“Sida” is the name for character “Sita” in Ramakien, Thai version of Ramayana1. Sida

remains an important character in Ramakien even her story is slightly different from various

Indian versions of Ramayanas. This article aims to question and critique the life of Sida in

Ramakien as her life exemplifies and represents the unspoken performative suppression in

Thai women in the contemporary society. In order to reach the objectives, I am going to use a

performance called “Sida: Sri Ram?” (Sita: Honor of Rama?) as a tool and the first entry

point, follow up with the dialogue between the discourses around the life of Sida and the

critical perspectives on tradition and nation.

“Sida: Sri Ram?” is a research play. Pornrat Damrhung, the playwright and director,

conducts this play for her academic research in the series of “The Humanities Research

Forum in Thailand.” In the conclusion of her research paper, she states that this play is

written to present the value and goodness of women in modern world. The play urges the

audience to think and question their own attitudes toward the values of traditional women.

The storytelling of the performance develops from the life of Sida as she is treated as the

counterpart of “Phra Ram” (Rama) in Ramakien. The play also challenges the notions of Sida

as an idealistic woman from the canonical story. Both canonical texts of Ramayana and

Ramakien present Sida as a beautiful and perfect woman, a good wife who loves and devotes

her life to her husband. Moreover, she is a great example of a good mother. However, on the                                                                                                                1  However, I always keep in mind that Ramayana is a very controversial text. There are many scholars in different academic fields discuss about it. This short article will not take those arguments on variety of Ramayana story-tellings into the discussion. Furthermore, the assumption that Ramakien is derived from Valmiki’s version of Ramayana is accepted in this article.    

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one hand, the director insists that the play does not deny all canonical notions of idealistic

Sida. On the other hand, the play aims to question the fact that when society and time has

changed, can we still use those canonical values or should we find and develop another new

values for women in contemporary society? (Pornrat Damrhung 2006)

From the creating and researching process, Pornrat considers it with three major processes.

The first is to retell the canonical story. The second is to use western drama techniques to tell

the canonical story. The last process is to deconstruct and reconstruct with new interpretation.

The result of these processes is the one hour and ten minutes performance with the style of

“story theatre” together with images, songs, short spoken-drama scenes to communicate the

theme “the idealistic images are not reality in life.” The director also concludes that this

re-telling process provides new understanding about the life and feeling of Sida. Nonetheless,

this article is not the restatement of Pornrat’s research. I will go beyond what Pornrat has

found in her own work since this performance has the potentials to critically question Thai

tradition and nation paradigms.

Because We Have Listened to All Old Stories

“Because we have listened to all old stories.” This is the last line of the prologue in the play

before it allows Sida to tell her story. The narrator, called “She,” introduces the play in very

neat and polite gesture. She starts questioning some doubtful aspects in Sida’s life while she

is sitting on the center-down-stage chair. After that, she asks for an opportunity for Sida to

claim the agency to narrate her own life story in Ramakien. Interestingly, these “old stories”

imply not only the canonical stories but also the interpretations as well as audience’s

perceptions toward the canonical stories. They and their interpretations underlie in various

aspects of Thai tradition.

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Obviously, Ramakien sets the expectation on behaviors in Thai society. The text has the

didactic voice, projecting what people should do in their daily lives. However, I would argue

that it frames different conducts between men and women as men should imitate Phra Ram

and women should follow Sida. These differences are performatively important. They are not

only about how men act differently from women but how men can play their powers over

women in the patriarchal society also. One may argue that the notion of patriarchy is in Thai

society for a long time. Whereas, I would state that it is not just the ideology that underlies in

the society, the specific expectation for different conducts of each gender also emphasizes the

suppression on women. Therefore, the patriarchal society is moving on no matter how time

has changed.

What Thai men are expected from the society is to be good sons for their parents, like Phra

Ram, who follows the rule of his monarchical system. During the exile in the forest, Phra

Ram becomes a leader of his army. He has special ability to fight and manage his men to win

the war over “Tosakanth” (Ravana). Cleary, he becomes the best figure of the one who

maintains his acts to reach his goal. Therefore, he is praised with honor as the name

Ramakien means “the honor of Rama.” From this interpretation, Thai men should do the

same. They are anticipated to be good leaders, and the brave, strong, as well as responsible

figures. For instances, some Thai proverbs and statements about sons and men magnify this

anticipation. There are many didactic words for men, such as, “Being a son, you must be

brave to be responsible for all you have done,” or “You are born as a soldier-like man.”

These didactic statements keep on teaching in Thai society.

However, in “Sida: Sri Ram?,” this notion has been challenged. A male sits at the center,

surrounded by many female characters and says, “We have never been taught how to be a

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good lover,” just like Phra Ram in Sida’s perception. The female characters keeps moving

their positions as an unsatisfied reaction to the excuses from a male character.

In terms of women, they are expected to be beautiful, neat, quiet, domestically smart, and so

on, like Sida. They have to love their husband, raise their children, or even look after her

husband’s parents. In the past, according to many Thai literary texts, women were taught to

be great in their own limited spaces, especially their houses. They had to know how to keep

the house neat and ready for their husband and son. In addition, they were expected to be

good at cooking as the kitchens were their space. These notions of domestic women have

been cultivated in Thai tradition. No matter how time has change, it is kept reproducing in

Thai women discourses. Even though, some might say that in this modern time, we need a

modern woman, this is not fully accepted by Thai traditional society. The value of women is

evaluated with the same old criteria.

For instance, if we consider politician as a good example of “modern woman” occupation,

according to the report of the conference on “Women and Politics: Reality, Political Space,

and Propeller,” by the King Prajadhipok’s Institute (2008), the panelists have concluded that

there are three major ways which Thai women can enter to political realm. The first is using

family as their bases, the second is husband-based entry, and the last one is their own interest

and ability. Moreover, in order to work as a female politician, one must find the supports

from many sources, such as her husband, family, the [male] senior politicians in the party, or

even media. This conclusion meaningfully supports my argument on the figure of modern

Thai women due to the fact that Thai women are still in the same old tradition and judged by

masculine-based society. The new modern women have not yet emerged.

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How does “Sida: Sri Ram?” question this paradigm of women and tradition? One early scene

in the play performs against this tradition. There are five Sidas on stage. All of them start

doing uncomfortable movements repetitively. Then the first Sida says, “The day Tosakanth

dies is the day I die.” Then, one by one, five Sidas project their feeling toward the pitiful life

of being Sida. They gradually perform more aggressively in a way that no one expects from

traditional Sida. They continuously hit themselves and speak out loudly and repetitively the

sentence “I’m angry” while the underscoring music plays faster beat. Finally, they all

transform to be aggressive Sidas and fight with the shadow puppets of thousand-face demons.

These puppets are manipulated mostly by male actors. Aggressive Sidas win the fight.

Pornrat uses the codified gestures of Thai classical dance to suggest the winner. This scene

projects clearly that this stage is women’s space. To be more specific, it is Sida’s space where

the audience is going to witness different Sida from that in their perception. The “new Sida”

for the audience is the problematic figure after the crash between tradition and modernity.

When considering this confrontation between modernity and tradition in the realms of Thai

women. I want to raise Talal Asad’s argument (1996). He says,

“…many writers do describe certain societies as hybrids, part modern

and part traditional. I don't agree with them, however. I think that one

needs to recognize that when one talks about tradition, one should be

talking about, in a sense, a dimension of social life and not a stage of

social development…”

Like Asad, I would restate that Thai society should not be considered as hybrid because the

modernity and tradition will never find their ending point which satisfy both Thai modernists

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and Traditionalists. In contrast to Asad, I would argue that social life and social development

cannot be separated when discussing about Thai tradition since when the time has change, the

social structure has been developed as well. And in “Sida: Sri Ram?” the performance has

raised many questions about new perception toward the value of “new Sida” or “new Thai

woman” which the stage of social development cannot be avoided in the discussion. In other

word, the social development also shapes a new figure of Thai woman while we keep

maintaining the tradition in our society.

Another major point in the paradigm of questioning Thai tradition is about the women and

religions. I would argue from “Sida: Sri Ram?” that Thai women are only visible in

secularized world of Ramakien. The women and their roles have never been mentioned in

relation with religious aspect in Ramakien. Frank E. Reynolds (in Paula Richman 2013: 56)

says about Thai Ramakien and its religious aspects in the textual tradition as following;

“…Any reader of these Ramakien texts will be immediately impressed

by the Hindu character of the narrative. From the outset the Hindu

gods dominate the scene…The Hindu gods continue to play a role

throughout the narrative, and Hindu figures continue to dominate the

action…Conversely, the most crucial elements of the earlier Buddhist

versions of the story are simply not present. There is no suggestion

whatsoever that the Buddha was the original teller of the tale…there

are no indications that a distinctively Buddhist version of the

cosmogony had any influence on the presentation. And what is

certainly most important the story is not presented as an incident in a

previous life of the Buddha...”

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Apparently, there is totally no impression in the religious perspectives in “Sida: Sri Ram?”

neither Hinduism nor Buddhism. What Pornrat has presented in her work is the figure of

Sida after an invisible process of secularization.

Performatively, religions are not the spaces for Thai women. For instance, in Thai Buddhist

tradition, a woman is not allowed to ordain to be a monk or even she wants to depart to

dharma life, she has to dress in white and be called “Mae She.” The figure of “Mae She” is

not in the same position with monk. It is the hierarchization within the same space both

literally, in the temple, and figuratively, in the Buddhist religion as a performative space. No

matter how important the religious aspects in Ramakien is, woman or the figure of Sida is

neglected.

The spaces for women, according to the play, are spa, beauty parlor, Miss Sida Universe

stage, etc. These spaces become significant when women gather together and cause the

performative meaning to them. Undeniably, these spaces emphasize the discourse of beautiful

and perfect women. Moreover, the value of women is judged by the appearance. The play

also critiques the traditional perception of a fine line between good and bad women. After,

pre-Miss Sida Universe competition, the character Sida makes a very radical critical

comparison between Sida and Sammanaka (Śūrpaṇakhā). She says that actually Sida and

Sammanaka have the same interest in Phra Ram. The only difference is their performance. If

you want to be Sida, you just keep quiet, stay calm and behave neatly. In contrast,

Sammanaka shows her interest obviously on Phra Ram. Then the later becomes the demonic

figure and the example of a bad woman.

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My Rama Husband Is a Westerner: When Sida Challenges Thai Nation

Now I am about to make a huge leap by using the religious aspect in Ramakien as a new

entry point to create the dialogue between figure of Sida and the paradigm of Thai nation.

Going back to the discussion on the confrontation between modernity and tradition, the

controversial argument can be found in the national regime of Thailand. Before 1932,

Thailand was governed by absolute monarchy system. After that, due to the historical record,

a large numbers of Thai new-wave students from the western graduation background had

requested for new national regime since the reign of King Rama V. Later on, the

constitutional monarchy has been established in the reign of King Rama VII. This significant

change is considered as the result of modernity in Thai nation.

In the time of absolute monarchy, the kings were treated as gods. The evidences to support

this fact are the name of the kings themselves, which related to Lord Vishnu or Phra Ram in

Ramakien, the national archives, or even the royal ceremonies, which maintain their

traditional conducts. Therefore, the change to constitutional monarchy should mean that those

notions of “Devaraja” (godly king), courtly traditions, and their impact to the citizen should

be ended, as it is the period of modernity. However, they do not end. This raises many

arguments among the scholars until today around a simple question, what the Thai

constitutional monarchy should be like?

In this discussion, I would raise Partha Chatterjee’s argument (1998). In his article

“secularism and toleration” he states that we [Indians], as the easterners, cannot adopt the

whole ideology of western modernity. Along the same vein with that in India, I would

challenge political thought that Thailand, under constitutional monarchy, is not totally secular

state by investigating through Thai community perspective. The monarchy system and its

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background maintain Thailand as, in some ways, a religious state. Moreover, I would not say

that this is a form of Caesaropapism, which is the combining power of secular government

with the religious power, because the situation in Thailand is not the combination but

negotiation instead. From this discussion, when Thailand is still a part of the religious state, it

emphasizes the suppression of women in Thai society, or in larger framework Thai nation,

since this is not women’s space.

In order to challenge the idea of Sida and Thai nation, I would contextualize two more

significant points from “Sida: Sri Ram?” Those points are, firstly, women who get abducted

from her nation by the marriage, and secondly, women who finally flee from the nation and

return to their roots.

One black comedy scene in “Sida: Sri Ram?” talks about marriage. All characters speak in

profile to the audience. Many women’s lives are similar to Sida’s according to the incidents

in their lives that they are happy, fall in love, marry, and follow their husband to a far journey

in other lands. Since Sida follows Phra Ram in the exile to the forest, she proves her love and

honesty to Phra Ram. In the same vein with Sida, many Thai women marry with the

westerners, or the stranger, in order to follow their dreams of new lives in other countries

even they know that it is risky. The character presented in the play says that though she

cannot speak foreign language, she can communicate to her husband by simple words and

gesture language. She tells that she has this chance to get marry because she is the cook in a

Thai restaurant and a westerner comes to that restaurant. He loves the taste of food, so he

wants to see the cook.

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The question that emerges from this point is that “is this a true love for that woman or just a

love because of her domestic skills? In other word, in Sida’s context, Phra Ram wants to

marry her because he loves her or he just wants to own her to prove his ability. Then, moving

to the nation context, if Phra Ram represents the masculine nation, Thai nation is not the ideal

space for women. Therefore, many of them move to other countries and take a risk in their

fortunes. Consequently, like Sida, they have been abducted from their motherland.

The visual element in the set design of the performance helps highlighting this point. There is

a big circle line around the acting area. This line is used as the limited space of women.

Whenever any women go out of this circle, they are in the risky state. This is to re-state that

Sida is abducted because she goes out of the line that “Phra Lak” (Lakṣmaṇa) has drawn to

protect her. It implies that when women go out of their limitation, they have to pay their

price. In this abducting issue, Thai nation refuses to be responsible for the women whose

lives finally collapse because they risk their lives outside the countries.

Another interesting scene to challenge women with nation paradigm is the last scene in the

play. It is the end of the life of Sida, after she has fled from Phra Ram and become a single

mother. She realizes that Phra Ram does not really love her. She finally decides to go back to

the mother goddess of soil and land. She goes underground again after she has been found

underground after her birth in the early part of Ramakien.

In the performance, all female performers come on stage and move slowly while they are

binding their heads with the white clothes, which, during the performance, are used as the

backdrop of the scenery. Some of them walk down the furrow at the center of the stage. This

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furrow can be interpreted as the name of Sida herself because the word Sida (Sita) means

furrow. Apparently, she goes back to where she has started her life.

With critical consideration in nation paradigm, since the whole Thai nation is not a space for

women, the only choice women can do, as suggesting by the performative act in the play, is

to keep quiet and goes back to their roots. This ending presents not only the sorrowful lives

of women, but also the fact that Thai nation is the male dominant nation. It is the nation of

men while women has been abandoned and suppressed quietly. Finally, the only choice they

can do is to die from the national space, keep distance from national movement, or hide their

voices from the nation-state.

In conclusion, as I use “Sida: Sri Ram?” as the starting point and try to move beyond with

performance studies perspective toward tradition and nation, this performance may urge the

audience to question the roles of women in gender discourse at first glance. However, we can

explore and critique other political aspects underlying in Thai society as well. Thai women

are not only hidden in their literary spaces, but performatively, in figurative spaces like

religion and nation. What we can move forward from this article is to play hide-and-seek

with Thai tradition and nation, figure these invisible but existing political discourses out, then

help questioning and challenging these myths. In this way, we hope to see a light for Thai

women in Thai contemporary society.

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Bibliography

English Language

Asad, Talal. “Modern Power and the Reconfiguration of Religious Tradition.”

[Online]. Available: http://www.stanford.edu/group/SHR/5-1/text/asad.html 1996,

Retrieved October 11, 2013.

Asad, Talal. “Thinking About Religious Belief and Politics.” [Online]. Available:

http://iah.unc.edu/images/events/EventDocuments/asadreligionpolitics [n.d.],

Retrieved October 11, 2013.

Chatterjee, Partha. “Sucularism and Toleration.” In A Possible India: Essays in

Political Criticism, 228-262. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.

Desai, Santosh N.. “Ramayana – An Instrument of Historical Contact and Cultural

Transmission Between India and Asia.” The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 30, No. 1

(Nov., 1970): 5-20. [Online]. From JSTOR Item: 2942721.

Retrieved October 11, 2013.

Reynolds, Frank E.. “Ramayana, Rama Jataka, and Ramakien: A Comparative Study

of Hindu and Buddhist Translation.” In Paula Richman, eds. Many Ramayanas:

The Diversity of a Narrative Tradition in South Asia, 50-63. New Delhi:

Oxford University Press, 2013.

Sideris, Tina. “Men, Identity and Power. A Case Study of the Re-Invention of

‘Tradition’: Implications for Involving Men in Training and Education about Gender.”

Agenda, No. 60. Contemporary Activism? (2004): 880-93. [Online].

From JSTOR Item: 4066345. Retrieved October 11, 2013.

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Thai Language

Damrhung, Pornrat. Retelling the Story Project 4: ‘Sida: Sri Ram?’ Complete Report.

Bangkok: The Thailand Research Fund, 2006.

King Prajadhipok’s Institute. Women and Politics: Reality, Political Space, and Propeller.

Bangkok: King Prajadhipok’s Institute, 2008.

Performance

Damrhung, Pornrat. “Sida: Sri Ram?” [DVD] Bangkok: Department of Dramatic Arts,

Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University, 2005.