Reflections on the Ramayan connection - Page 9

Originally posted by: adeeti10

Hey Wesha,

Just read your post - lovely, and so well articulated. Highlighting some of the parts I want to understand better/ add to:

When you refer to Ravan as the hero of the Ramayan, do you refer to hero as in the sense of protagonist or hero in the context of being heroic?

Ravan not touching Sita - he didn't touch her, but he did covet her and demanded that she marry him (can relate this to what both Arnav has done and what Shyam tried to do)

It's interesting that you make the analogy between the current fake marriage and Ravan (Arnav) being Sita's (Khushi's) clandestine lover... if we consider Swathi's perspective that Arnav's a mixture of Ram and Ravan, then ASR (the Ravan in Arnav) will seek redemption and become Arnav (Ram)?

As far I recollect, it was Laxman who committed the act of cutting Shurpanakha's nose and ears.. as the story goes, she first approached Ram who said he was already taken. Then she saw Laxman who also rejected her offer. This is when she attacked Sita, and Laxman stepped in and cut off her nose and ears. I don't think Ram had asked him to do so, I think Ram had instructed him not to kill her.

The other bit is about Ram sacrificing Laxman's happiness. Again, if I recollect, Laxman makes the offer to accompany Ram and Sita. Ram asked him to stay back but Laxman insists. Urmila offers to join them but he asks her to stay on and take care of the family, his parents. Also, there are versions that suggest Laxman asked her to stay back so he could be more devoted to his bro and her sis, and serve them better.

Raam was more worried about what the world thought of him and this is something that I cannot understand. Like you said, Ravan was more honest with himself... and the way Arnav is at present, he considers Khushi collateral damage in his big game... and it's ok for her to be sacrificed for the greater good.

Originally posted by: queenie11

This is so interesting...

And of course, there's the Abhishek - Aishwarya film Raavan where Raavaan/Beera is portrayed as an anti-hero who is ruthless, arrogant, seemingly indestructible, his only weakness is a girl (ultimately his downfall).

Originally posted by: wesha

Arnav is an anagram of Ravan. An observation could not have been more spot-on.

You know, before the CVs lost their grip on ASR's characterization, this is always what I thought about Arnav. Going by the disaster they are writing now, it is hard to believe that they had actually named this show as 'Vaidehi' at one time with perhaps the exact kind of analogy with Ramayan that you brought out so beautifully in your post.

But to continue with the character arc that ASR once was, I thought he was Ravan through and through. And that is because, to me Ravan was always the hero of Ramayan.

The force of Ravan's existence was such that every part of the story just happened as a reaction to him and his actions. He was all that you said - a scholar, a just ruler...but even more than all this, I think he was an antonym to all those "good girls/boys" who rarely make "history" on their own. I loved the character and I could even identify with his arrogance. In real life, if you have pulled yourself up to that kind of pedestal of "success" all by your own, you are bound to feel a little smug. That is natural and to an extent well-earned. Trying to suppress it, unless it goes beyond ethical realms, is actually dishonest. I liked how honest that character of Ravan was to himself. He knew he had done what he had to do but he also knew what was in his hands NOT to do. He DID NOT touch Sita. If kidnapping her was in line with his value system (sister's revenge), so was not maligning Sita's purity. And he was honest even in his death. He revered Ram for all the later's good qualities (true sign of an educated mind with a lion's heart) and felt no loss of self-esteem when he asked Raam himself to end his life after being defeated by him fair and square on the battlefield.

Raam does not exert his existence much although he is a fountain of personality and talents as well. There is, however, one crucial point that always distinguished Ravan and Raam for me.

Raavan's love and passion for Sita and Raam's love and passion for Sita.

Raam was the man who in the world's eyes was authorized to love Sita. (Like, many of us some times feel, Shyam is after all much more well-behaved around Khushi and he has the mellowness required of a married man...etc...).

Ravan, on the other hand, was her clandestine lover. ( Almost illegitimate like the current 'fake' marriage)

But, when it came to really living these roles, Raam failed miserably ( whatever be the reasons...there can be a whole debate over a ruler's responsibility towards state vis-a-vis his family...and I can go on and on but that is not the question here).

So, Raam let his love sacrifice herself to save his 'greater' skin. While, Ravan went against his 'greater' skin - the demonic world - to hold his passions and desires for Sita back so as not to cause her any further defamation. This despite the fact that Raam left his sister "unmarriagable" for life because he frivolously decided to punish Surpanakha for her overt gestures towards him by cutting off her nose.

I thought ASR's character was through and through Ravan before he started to physically hurt Khushi and before he started to think that his brother was a complete WIMP and had no life or mind of his own. This is where I now see glimpses of Raam in ASR - that Raam who did not think much about Laxman's wife and family life before he 'let' him accompany him to the forest where he himself was going to enjoy 'female companionship' before the 'eyes' of his s*x-starved brother.

And that Raam, who thought sacrificing Sita's fame for the greater good was the noble thing to do.

Sorry, for carrying on for so long but you have started on a very apt topic for discussion. Will be good to know various points of view on this.

Originally posted by: wesha

Adeeti,

Glad to have this discussion with someone who has read her epics well. :) The points you highlighted NEEDS to be understood.

First of all, I guess what you are hoping a Hero to be to me is the later - being heroic. Alas, I do not understand the definition of 'heroic', so I will just highlight the points I already made before to underline why I thought Ravan was the 'hero'.

The force of Ravan's existence was such that every part of the story just happened as a reaction to him and his actions. He was all that you said - a scholar, a just ruler...but even more than all this, I think he was an antonym to all those "good girls/boys" who rarely make "history" on their own. I loved the character and I could even identify with his arrogance. In real life, if you have pulled yourself up to that kind of pedestal of "success" all by your own, you are bound to feel a little smug. That is natural and to an extent well-earned. Trying to suppress it, unless it goes beyond ethical realms, is actually dishonest. I liked how honest that character of Ravan was to himself. He knew he had done what he had to do but he also knew what was in his hands NOT to do. He DID NOT touch Sita. If kidnapping her was in line with his value system (sister's revenge), so was not maligning Sita's purity. And he was honest even in his death. He revered Ram for all the later's good qualities (true sign of an educated mind with a lion's heart) and felt no loss of self-esteem when he asked Raam himself to end his life after being defeated by him fair and square on the battlefield.

Now, you might argue that Ram had these qualities as well. But two things always gives Ravan that extra edge over Ram, to me.

Ravan is the classic underdog. He was born to a Brahmin rishi. He felt he did not fit into that world. He denounced it and plunged headlong into a 'dedicated' journey to acquire what he needed to fit into the 'other' world (his 'tapasya' to Lord Shiva is a metaphor for that). Unlike Ram, who had it all on a silver platter.

The other thing that makes Ravan the 'Man' to me is the ability to exert the influence of his existence. When he believes in something, he believes in it strongly enough to make it happen. And this has been consistent throughout the story(be it in a good way or a bad way...I would still applaud him for sticking by his conviction, come what may). Unlike Ram, who exerted his ideals only when it came to the 'state'. In the two instances of Surpanakha and Lakshman that you mentioned above, it very well could have been written on those lines in the text, but to me, the bottom-line is Ram 'let' those things happen.

Now the way you read the 'epic's is guided largely by the way your life and experiences have been. I remember having read the story at various ages and stages of my life and have always been surprised how the interpretations have improved/changed each time. Its the beauty of the many layers that the epic has. But its also almost like, how here in this forum there are all age groups of people who perceive all that is happening in the show in very different ways.

So, I might not like Ram standing by and giving a nod to Lakshman's 'wishes' to remain devoted to him rather than his wife or Lakshman's sadistic pleasure in 'cutting off' Surpanakha's nose, with a superior face and an attitude like our political class - "My hands did not do it so I am not to blame. I did my duty to refrain him".

But, for some this might not look so unnatural and that is perfectly understandable too.

And maybe this is why the fact that Ravan 'coveted' Sita after kidnapping her in a rash decision and yet kept all his 'demonic' instincts in control to not touch her until she is 'legally' tied to him gives him some more brownie points in my eyes. This here might look a little like Shyam but Shyam has neither the gumption nor the charisma to pull this off in full view of his wife and his world (which Arnav totally has). Plus, Mandodari was herself a very intelligent. well-aware lady who knew where her husband could not be stopped. In this scenario, Ravan was a person drunk with eternal power...he had all the strings in his hands...a la Arnav now...and yet he did not really act on it.

@bold Sorry dear, I could not understand your last para. so will not comment on it. But hope the rest made sense to you.

Originally posted by: Rita.C

Hi all,

Loved this discussion to bits. It was so wonderful to go back to our classics.

Speaking of which, here is a bit I am throwing in, from the historical perspective to make this hopefully more interesting, (yes, I am a History major I guess you can tell:))

I believe that when the Ramayan was conceived (and I say conceived because it was shruti, not written till about 4th c AD while it originated and was passed on through word of mouth since 900 BC), it was basically a story based on the patheon of gods that existed and the notion of god was rather different from what we now have come to understand to be god in today's times. it was at the end of the day a pantheistic religion, with the fresh invaders having come to Indian shores, taken over the hordes of natives, pushed them back from their earlier settlements and started the process of "sanscritization" (a phrase used to denote the tactics to absorb natives into the Aryan fold through military and religious means. the native gods were the earth mother (in various forms who later took on the face of Shakti based goddesses) and Rudra (who is a pre-Aryan god who happens to be my favourite, he is so wild and so uncontrollable and the bad boy of the gods but the Aryans in an attempt to include the popular notions/ icons of the natives, absorbed this persona as Shiva - there are some fantastic historians who have written on this)

So to my mind, just like the Greek mythology, the Illiad and the Odyssey speaks of Gods like Zeus and Athena and Hera and Hermes, they are not necessarily pure as driven snow or blameless or completely god like in their attributes. They are instead God like in their larger than life persona and again, that civilization too was iron ore civilization and was again pantheistic in nature, and saw gods as powerful beings who had control over humans, but were not necessarily perfect.

It is only later, as we evolved in the human race that we began to think of God as perfect and pure and then tried to force fit our mythology to fit our notions of God. to me, and of course this is a personal preference, it has always been a great pity that the major trends of Hinduism ignore the minor but v relevant, empower, enriching and interesting trends like the Charvaks and the Mimansas etc, who ranged from atheism to agnostism and the Upanishadism which is much more philosophical than religions. Hence idiolising them blindly I dont believe is what Hinduism is all about.

We therefore should take Ramayan and Mahabharat as such - texts that help us understand human nature in context of v difficult, life threatening situations and events that call for strong moral compass and reactions.

Unfortunately I feel that our society has been v insular in allowing such analysis and it is only now that some of us are openly doing this kind of analysis. This allows us to understand the deeper nuances of human behaviour so much better and learn the essence of the religion so much better. I am sure many of you have read Devdutt Patnaik's fantastic books where he does this so well.

Coming back to the analysis, personally I have always felt that Ram is not meant to be the perfect man is he? as all of you point out, he is flawed but larger than life. Look at the way he defeated Bali. Is there any way one can justify that action - killing a man through deceit and from the back? there is v little justification one can provide for that act alone.

Ravan - well he is a different kettle of fish altogether and I would not be surprised if it is in later versions that Ravan is shown to be always planning ahead and wanting to be defeated by Ram to be able to reach heaven.

the Danav group is basically the pre-aryan tribes who were marked down in Aryan mythology as the "Other" to quote Edward Said and therefore always the wild, the uncontrolled to be defeated ultimately.

So Ravan, by virtue of abducting Sita, is doing what Pre-Aryan tribes did well, throw a few spanners in the ordered Aryan civilisation... this I suspect is reflective of the on-going tensions of the invaders fighting the natives (note that this was still early days and it took the Aryans a good 1000 years or more to settle in as the winners in that squirmish) unlike the Mahabharat which is slightly later and shows a more ordered society.

Btw, to respond to someone's comment on why Ram put Sita through the Agni Pariksha, if you stop forcing yourself to think of him as a God and just think of him as a human being then you understand that as a leader and a politician, given the historical context, you can sort of understand why he had to prove that the leader's wife is pure, but to justify and say it was fine is I believe irreconciable no matter what age it is. Sita had to go through the fire not Ram so to show the world that Sita was pure was really not too much hardship on him.. All Ram had to do was watch on the side lines and approve or disapprove. What would you say to anyone man you knew around you, who did the same in metaphorical or real terms as say, ASR is doing - ask a woman to prove that she is pure from a situation she inadvertently fell into (not that I believe its that important to be pure anyway but thats a different story altogether). That is almost like asking a woman who has been physically forced to prove that she was not at fault.

The Ashokvan analogy in this thread, was brillant. I think this group is really on to something here and I believe that I have finally got enough inspiration to go back and watch the rest of this serial for more than just our gorgeous ASR and KKG!

just to answer some posts that asked us to desist from this discussion. I do believe that this world would be poorer if we cannot do that and political correctness can be taken too far. This discussion is entirely respectful and to stop an intellectual conversation like this, is tantamount to burning pictures of authors who is perceived to write disrespectfully about one's sentiments or driving out artists and painters who paint what we dont like.. it starts censorship of the worst kind and before you know it, society is poorer from fear of questions.

I don't see anything disrespectful in comparing a serial's characters with our religious texts. The serials are based in reality - fictional but reality of what lives around us are like. comparing them with another text which has characters that are religious is not respectful under any circumstances - it helps us better understand our religion and strengthens our identity. Keeping any religion isolated from life, only to be kept for our "rasams" is to stultify it.

I do strongly believe Hinduism is stronger than this and can withstand intense scrutiny and discussion, and to be afraid of such discussions is to disrespect the essence of Hinduism which celebrates diversity and questioning. My humble request is not restrict ourselves in every way and be insecure about our religion.

Again, to quote Voltaire, I dislike what you write but I defend your right to write it.

and Rabindranath Tagore - Let us open our doors and windows to new ideas and thoughts.

Finally my sincere apologies for writing so much.. and hope it was not too boring.. and some of you are still awake at the end of this.. its so rare that I actually get a chance to talk about stuff like this to anyone...

Originally posted by: Rita.C

Hi all,

Loved this discussion to bits. It was so wonderful to go back to our classics.

Speaking of which, here is a bit I am throwing in, from the historical perspective to make this hopefully more interesting, (yes, I am a History major I guess you can tell:))

I believe that when the Ramayan was conceived (and I say conceived because it was shruti, not written till about 4th c AD while it originated and was passed on through word of mouth since 900 BC), it was basically a story based on the patheon of gods that existed and the notion of god was rather different from what we now have come to understand to be god in today's times. it was at the end of the day a pantheistic religion, with the fresh invaders having come to Indian shores, taken over the hordes of natives, pushed them back from their earlier settlements and started the process of "sanscritization" (a phrase used to denote the tactics to absorb natives into the Aryan fold through military and religious means. the native gods were the earth mother (in various forms who later took on the face of Shakti based goddesses) and Rudra (who is a pre-Aryan god who happens to be my favourite, he is so wild and so uncontrollable and the bad boy of the gods but the Aryans in an attempt to include the popular notions/ icons of the natives, absorbed this persona as Shiva - there are some fantastic historians who have written on this)

So to my mind, just like the Greek mythology, the Illiad and the Odyssey speaks of Gods like Zeus and Athena and Hera and Hermes, they are not necessarily pure as driven snow or blameless or completely god like in their attributes. They are instead God like in their larger than life persona and again, that civilization too was iron ore civilization and was again pantheistic in nature, and saw gods as powerful beings who had control over humans, but were not necessarily perfect.

It is only later, as we evolved in the human race that we began to think of God as perfect and pure and then tried to force fit our mythology to fit our notions of God. to me, and of course this is a personal preference, it has always been a great pity that the major trends of Hinduism ignore the minor but v relevant, empower, enriching and interesting trends like the Charvaks and the Mimansas etc, who ranged from atheism to agnostism and the Upanishadism which is much more philosophical than religions. Hence idiolising them blindly I dont believe is what Hinduism is all about.

We therefore should take Ramayan and Mahabharat as such - texts that help us understand human nature in context of v difficult, life threatening situations and events that call for strong moral compass and reactions.

Unfortunately I feel that our society has been v insular in allowing such analysis and it is only now that some of us are openly doing this kind of analysis. This allows us to understand the deeper nuances of human behaviour so much better and learn the essence of the religion so much better. I am sure many of you have read Devdutt Patnaik's fantastic books where he does this so well.

Coming back to the analysis, personally I have always felt that Ram is not meant to be the perfect man is he? as all of you point out, he is flawed but larger than life. Look at the way he defeated Bali. Is there any way one can justify that action - killing a man through deceit and from the back? there is v little justification one can provide for that act alone.

Ravan - well he is a different kettle of fish altogether and I would not be surprised if it is in later versions that Ravan is shown to be always planning ahead and wanting to be defeated by Ram to be able to reach heaven.

the Danav group is basically the pre-aryan tribes who were marked down in Aryan mythology as the "Other" to quote Edward Said and therefore always the wild, the uncontrolled to be defeated ultimately.

So Ravan, by virtue of abducting Sita, is doing what Pre-Aryan tribes did well, throw a few spanners in the ordered Aryan civilisation... this I suspect is reflective of the on-going tensions of the invaders fighting the natives (note that this was still early days and it took the Aryans a good 1000 years or more to settle in as the winners in that squirmish) unlike the Mahabharat which is slightly later and shows a more ordered society.

Btw, to respond to someone's comment on why Ram put Sita through the Agni Pariksha, if you stop forcing yourself to think of him as a God and just think of him as a human being then you understand that as a leader and a politician, given the historical context, you can sort of understand why he had to prove that the leader's wife is pure, but to justify and say it was fine is I believe irreconciable no matter what age it is. Sita had to go through the fire not Ram so to show the world that Sita was pure was really not too much hardship on him.. All Ram had to do was watch on the side lines and approve or disapprove. What would you say to anyone man you knew around you, who did the same in metaphorical or real terms as say, ASR is doing - ask a woman to prove that she is pure from a situation she inadvertently fell into (not that I believe its that important to be pure anyway but thats a different story altogether). That is almost like asking a woman who has been physically forced to prove that she was not at fault.

The Ashokvan analogy in this thread, was brillant. I think this group is really on to something here and I believe that I have finally got enough inspiration to go back and watch the rest of this serial for more than just our gorgeous ASR and KKG!

just to answer some posts that asked us to desist from this discussion. I do believe that this world would be poorer if we cannot do that and political correctness can be taken too far. This discussion is entirely respectful and to stop an intellectual conversation like this, is tantamount to burning pictures of authors who is perceived to write disrespectfully about one's sentiments or driving out artists and painters who paint what we dont like.. it starts censorship of the worst kind and before you know it, society is poorer from fear of questions.

I don't see anything disrespectful in comparing a serial's characters with our religious texts. The serials are based in reality - fictional but reality of what lives around us are like. comparing them with another text which has characters that are religious is not respectful under any circumstances - it helps us better understand our religion and strengthens our identity. Keeping any religion isolated from life, only to be kept for our "rasams" is to stultify it.

I do strongly believe Hinduism is stronger than this and can withstand intense scrutiny and discussion, and to be afraid of such discussions is to disrespect the essence of Hinduism which celebrates diversity and questioning. My humble request is not restrict ourselves in every way and be insecure about our religion.

Again, to quote Voltaire, I dislike what you write but I defend your right to write it.

and Rabindranath Tagore - Let us open our doors and windows to new ideas and thoughts.

Finally my sincere apologies for writing so much.. and hope it was not too boring.. and some of you are still awake at the end of this.. its so rare that I actually get a chance to talk about stuff like this to anyone...