Rescuing Ram

"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 16^th 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.