"How did my father, the king of Mithila and the lord of the Videha, get
you, a woman disguised as a man, for a son-in-law?"
-- Sita
asking Ram (Ayodhya kand, Valmiki Ramayan)
Dattaram Chiplunkar is not the overtly religious type. But
even at 52, as at 10, the revered Gayatri mantra ushers in his day. While
Dattaram has never read the complete Ramayan, he, like millions of others,
never really got over its first narration. This government bank employee was,
of course, one among the millions who scheduled their Sunday morning activities
in the late 1980s according to Ramanand Sagar’s TV adaptation of the epic.
Dattaram is incredulous when told that at one point in the
Valmiki Ramayan, Sita suspects Ram of sliding into “cruelty without a justified
cause for hostility” – a somewhat Lawrence of Arabia-ish quirk – and she even
gently chides him for that.
“I thought Ram was always in control of his senses. He was
the ultimate leader,” says this father of two, not knowing that on several
occasions in the tale as per Valmiki, Ram exhibits weakness, requiring
Lakshman, Sugriv or others to prop up his spirits.
With Indologist Wendy Doniger’s book “The Hindus – An Alternative
Narrative” once again bringing to start relief the hyper-sensitivities in India
over religion, it would be ironic to state that leave alone alternative narratives,
even mainstream or “original” texts are not really read or understood by the
country’s masses.
Krishna Raj, a senior research executive with Nerolac
Paints, sounds surprised when told that some major female mythological
characters such as Sita, Draupadi and Satyavati had their breasts and other
private body parts, frequently likened amorously to fruits, elephant trunks and
plantain.
“I must have heard the Ramayan when I was around six. Though
I have been enamoured by it, I never ventured to read and explore any of the
versions,” says the 40-year-old.
For Renuka Murthy, a Chennai housewife, Amar Chitra Katha’s
depiction of the tale is the Ramayan. So is the similar version of Mahabharat –
“simple and captivating”.
Thence lies a lacuna between the popular narratives of our
epics and mythology and their various original versions. Is this rendering the
splendours of our ancient legends and heroes into caricatures? Is this
veritable disconnect in perspectives distilling their myriad nuances into
Bollywoodish bipolarities of good and bad?
Besides bed-time stories, mass media and school text-books,
the Ramayan’s nobility, Mahabharat’s varied philosophies and Puranas’ symbolism
percolate into the average Indian through osmosis with his or her immediate
environment. For, there is rarely anything about mundane life in this country
that doesn’t resonate with some trickle of its mythology.
However, most of us, at least in urban India, are
content with the stock mental imagery that’s a part of popular depiction. More
worrisome: Even tangential attempts to change set notions are fraught.
According to mythologist Devdutt
Pattnaik, 80-90% of Indians get their first taste of the Ramayan orally and not
through texts. Of the rest, he says, 50% are in the regional languages. Perhaps
only 5-10% would be familiar with the Valmiki Ramayan, considered one of the
earliest and, for many, perhaps the “original”.
“Ramayan is not a text. It is a
parampara (tradition). Most of us have not ‘read’ the text version of the
Ramayan. We have only ‘heard’ it. But it more or less ends there,” says
Pattnaik, author of such mythology-based books as Jaya, An Illustrated Retelling Of The Mahabharata and The Book Of Ram. “There is a lot of
self-consciousness involved in poplar narratives. There is a clear attempt to
make the Ramayan politically palatable,” he says.
Suggestive interpretations of the epic may be kosher in
private conversations, but public portrayal may lead to much more than just a
few raised eyebrows, Pattnaik feels. Notwithstanding the fact that the Ramayan
is a beehive of such surprises.
Take Ram, that enduring symbol of human ideal, for instance.
For all the emphasis on his human birth, many of us would loathe to acknowledge
the associated frailties, the very traits that make him the central character
of the epic.
The fact that he hopelessly breaks down frequently when
distressed and needs constant ‘pushing’ by either Lakshman, Sugriv or others,
rarely informs our idea of Ayodhya’s eldest prince. Sita’s acerbic barbs at him,
perhaps just what today’s feminists may be looking for, jar when superimposed
on our received notions of the demure princess.
“The layman doesn’t want his set of ideas tampered with.
Only some, who go slightly deeper, develop a more clear and critical attitude,”
says Dr Bodhisattva, a scholar of Hindi and an expert in traditional Indian
texts, who also works closely with the television media, offering ideas and
perspectives.
“What most of us come across in the name of mythology is the
culturally edited version. I believe such editing of texts meant for adult
consumption is anti-social and anti-tradition,” Dr Bodhisattva says.
Texts like Ramayan and Mahabharat are important because they
determine our attitudes towards a variety of things, from social mores to
family to politics. That makes it even more important for them to be understood
in all their glorious shades of grey.
Take social hierarchy for instance. One scholar cites the
Ekalavya episode of the Mahabharat. The immensely talented tribesman approaches
Dronacharya to be taught, only to be refused. The guru’s reasoning is subtle:
Ekalavya is not the ‘son of a prince’. Now, that is different from Ekalavya
being declared ineligible because he belongs to what, in our milieu, is a
Scheduled Tribe. However, the latter is invariably what we have
internalized.
To be fair, the Amar Chitra Kathas and the Ramanand Sagars
must be credited with initiating and popularizing the epics, even if they
failed to dwell deeper. After all there are various considerations, including
sensitivities and market dynamics involved.
“Most importantly,” says Pattnaik, “they were also a product
of a need to accommodate mindsets informed by western idioms and ideas of
morality and modesty.” Focus on nuances, he says, could only distort the
existing idealistic image of our heroes. This, however, reinforced existing
notions, depriving us of profound and meatier aspects. Tragic.
According to economist Bibek Debroy of the Centre for Policy
Research, New Delhi,
unabridged original versions must be disseminated through popular media.
Debroy, currently translating the entire Mahabharat into a 10-volume Penguin
publication, would know. For, he admits “suppressing” episodes involving the
graphic description of Siva’s sexual escapades when he translated the Puranas
long time back.
“Today I am a little more matured. I wouldn’t edit them
out,” Debroy says, adding, “I suspect public reaction to unabridged versions
would depend on the character involved. If it is Ram or Sita, all hell could
break loose. But if it is Krishna, tolerance
would perhaps be higher.”
Translators would face issues in other contentious areas
too, such as meat eating and treatment of liquor. Pattnaik says he came across
a version of the Ramayan in Dantewada, which, if narrated publicly in
mainstream society, would lead to the narrator getting butchered! Dr
Bodhisattva too feels audiences will accept culturally unedited versions of
mythology if they are not manipulative.
“My elders used to read the Adhyatmaramayanam (by the 16th
century Malayalam poet). I myself started with C Rajagopalachari’s version. Now
I regularly listen to expositions on the epic on TV. I now realize there is so
much to be discovered, spiritually and otherwise,” says Ramakumar Menon, a
senior official with a government petroleum company.
“Mindsets are changing with time. There are so many things
in the texts, which may come across as surprising to us. Yet, with today’s media
being increasingly transparent and explicit, I feel it should lead to better
appreciation of our epics,” said the 57-year-old Menon.
Authentic portrayal could fill up the perspective gaps,
often exploited to engineer social upheavals based on mythology. Besides, that
could also slam the brakes on a plausible vicious cycle of conservatism
distilling mythology into undimensional popular narratives and this, in turn,
feeding more conservatism.
There is a goldmine of ideas, which capture the spirit of India in all
its glory, idiosyncrasy, melodrama and delight, lying buried under the debris
of convenient hand-me-downs.
An entire pantheon awaits redemption.
