This has been on my conscience for years - I got it as a review copy from Penguin when they were doing a giveaway to bloggers, and failed to review it. Here I make some attempt, however belatedly, to do so.

This is part of the Penguin Epics series, a modern prose version by R. K. Narayan, and only a fraction of the whole story of Rama and Sita. Prose or no prose, the epic mood is very strong, the sense that here is a story that has been told for generations and generations, and, indeed, as the afterword points out, is still being told. The characters are engaging and larger than life; the settings vividly described. Here is a single episode of a long, long story, embellished with digressions and decoration, picked out and presented in 200 odd pages.

http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/8042359