The millennials’ view of a millennia – The Ramayan
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| Paintings on Ramayan, created by Nithila and Niharika over last few years... |
The mornings and evenings this past month have been incredibly divine, literally, with Gods illuminating our screens… We all, including my daughters (12Y & 9Y), religiously watched them, descending between us, enacting Ramayan.
I have little memories of seeing Ramayan during my childhood, but I sure do remember the seriousness and the solemnity with which it was seen by one and all… this time around, however, it was like seeing a combination of a comic film plus science fiction plus an animated movie… The initial episodes were full of exclamations, disbelief and questions from the girls, trying to find logic and finding none !! Right from why did Dashrath have three wives? when all of them delivered babies same day, how come they grew to be older or younger than each other? Why do they wear all ornaments even while sleeping? If they didn’t have to speak pure Sanskrit, why do they speak such difficult Hindi either? While their disbelief eased over time, the reasoning did not…
Ram, as a character, was unreal to them, to start with… his righteousness and lack of any negative emotions like anger, jealousy, dishonesty was not something they could relate to at all… to the point that they would exclaim “arey, is he out of his mind?”, “hello, you are supposed to react Mr Ram, not just smile!”, “doesn’t he ever feel pained?”, “hey Ram, will you ever change your expression?”… and this illusory feeling about Ram gradually changed to dislike when he prioritized helping Sugreev over rescuing Sita, when he asked Sita to give agnipariksha, later when he disowned her, and in general resorted to ‘dharma’ at every crossroad, which ofcourse is a new word to the girls’ dictionary..
Lakshman, Hanuman and the Vanar Sena, and also the character of Ravan were more palatable to them, with their dramatic performances… their reactions on most occasions were far more real, showing their emotions in all their glory… but again, the illogical happenings kept the questions flowing… how can they change their ‘roop’ at the drop of a hat, such makeovers take time… they were never seen eating or exercising, then how each of them were mighty and strong… they seemed to know the way through the forest and which Rishi stayed where, but how did they not know where Ravan stayed… why did they spend their time and skills in making a setu, they could have instead made a vimaan like what Ravan had (you don’t manufacture pistols when the enemy has missiles!).. why did Ram (being Vishnu) not call his Garud instead… why they didn’t have a doctor in their army when they waged a war… infact each of them were incarnations or descendants of some or the other God and so possessed enough powers, yet they seemed to struggle with trivial things… If ever Valmiki rishi decided to re-visit his written epic, they would have an endless list of suggestions and corrections for him to make, and incorporate the millennials' view of this millennia...
The most important change they would want Valmiki to make is to the character of Sita… they found her totally unimpressive, rather failed to understand why should she be worshipped as a goddess at all… they believed that all the queens and princesses would be skillful warriors, just like the kings and princes… but Sita was a let down that way… infact she could not protect herself, she had to wait for Ram to rescue her... she seemed dependent and helpless most of her life… instead of giving a befitting answer to the blame afflicted on her, she defenselessly retired to another stint in the forest… she did not fight for her rights and in the end she gave up… all this may be a real character of a real woman, but not of a Goddess isn’t it? Well, I have promised myself to read more about Sita, to be able to convince them about her Godliness… till then, yes, she seemed quite a vulnerable ordinary woman.. and not appealing to their rational and ‘analytical’ minds…
In spite of all the unreasonableness, we thoroughly enjoyed watching each episode of Ramayan… an animated movie on science fiction in a comic format, which had us glued to the television for the time it was aired, keeping every other activity at bay… I must also mention that we did see some episodes of Mahabharat too, but the girls found the plot too complicated (for their innocent hearts)… Ramayan was about one man, his family, friends and a handful of enemies… the story was simple, based on his life journey… whereas Mahabharat according to them seemed to be full of complicated family relationships, each person plotting against someone, too many stories weaving into each other… when I reflected on these thoughts, I did realize that where Ram, Sita, Hanuman seemed happy with everything that came their way, none of the characters in Mahabharat looked contended… each of them was chasing a self-created target or a dream and in the process ended up committing sins, and waging wars… Mahabharat was, to me, the highest level of conspiracy and politics, and hence not as appealing to my girls.. thankfully so, because one it saved me from the multitude of questions that this complicated epic could have posed and two, it did reconfirm the innocence that these young souls still carry…
Even with all the reasoning, it is this innocence that made them acknowledge the unreal, get closer to the fictitious, and believe in the illusions… no wonder then that in the last episode yesterday when Sita surrendered to Earth after giving a spiel on ending this life to find a better next life, my daughter thought for a while and asked me – “Mumma, do you think I am Sita of million years ago, reborn now, in a better avatar?”… yet another question, I struggled to answer !
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