In a family, while the father protects and the mother takes care, it is siblings who bring love, laughter and lots of fun into the family and become the centre of life. They not only are close company, but also the strong support to the family in times of joys and sorrows. Ramayan is full of such sibling love, where Shri Ram and his brothers are the idols of brotherhood, but the other bond too which is as equal to that of the four brothers is of Mata Sita’s with her loving sisters, who not only grew with her, but also came along with her to Ayodhya, and spent the entire life in her footsteps being her unseen support system and giving the family all the love and attention needed.
Sita’s sisters as they are fondly called came along as the wives of the three brothers after Shri Ram wedded Mata Sita. Shri Ram’s bonding with Mata Sita was celebrated with great joy. Bharat was married to Mandavi, Lakshman to Urmila and Shatrughan to Shrutakirti. The sisters as noble their elder sister Sita, imbibed all her virtues into them. Their humble nature and strong mind became the very support of the family during the times of distress.
Urmila’s sacrifice – Following Shri Ram, Mata Sita left for exile for fourteen years. What was even more painful to Urmila was that her husband Lakshman too followed the footsteps of his brother and left along with them. In the absence of Lakshman, Urmila faced the greatest challenge of keeping the family together. Urmila takes all the pain of separation and does her duty of taking care of the family for the cause of Shri Ram and her sister. It was a silent mourning for her, where keeping the pain of separation from her husband inside, she served the royal family all the time and supported the queen mothers who were in the grief of losing their husband, thus becoming an epitome of sacrifice and duty in womanhood.
Mandavi’s support – When Bharat leaves for Nandigram, Mandavi stays back at the palace to take care of the Queens. Bharat gives Mandavi the duty of taking care of Mata Kaushalya and comforting her and it becomes the duty of Mandavi to stay back at the palace and take care of the queen mothers. Without any complaints, Mandavi does her duty with a sense of responsibility which was as equal to that of Bharat.
Shrutakirti’s responsibility – The youngest ones are the most pampered ones in the family, but their grit is proved when they take the responsibility of taking care of the family. Although Shatrughan and Shrutakirti were together, they never put their personal life as priority, but gave in all their time to take care of all the elders of the family. While Shatrughan assisted Bharat, Shurtakirti assisted her elder sisters in their duty, thus proving that not only the pampered ones, but the youngest ones are also the strong ones.
The four princesses grew up in the loving care of Maharaj Janak and Mata Sunaina, but never went back on their responsibilities. As the princesses of Ayodhya, they represented the respect and dignity of Ayodhya. As the sisters of Mata Sita, they perfectly fulfilled their roles of being a mother taking care of the family, being a daughter by loving the queen mothers, and being perfect siblings by always being there for each other.