Confessions of an Epic Indian

AUTHOR’S INTRODUCTION TO THE INDIAN EDITION

Adi-kavya: The first retelling
Some three thousand years ago, a sage named Valmiki lived in a remote forest ashram, practising austerities with his disciples. One day, the wandering sage Narada visited the ashram and was asked by Valmiki if he knew of a perfect man. Narada said, indeed, he did know of such a person, and then told Valmiki and his disciples a story of an ideal man.

Some days later, Valmiki happened to witness a hunter killing a kraunchya bird. The crane’s partner was left desolate, and cried inconsolably. Valmiki was overwhelmed by anger at the hunter’s action, and sorrow at the bird’s loss. He felt driven to do something rash, but controlled himself with difficulty.

After his anger and sorrow subsided, he questioned his outburst. After so many years of practising meditation and austerities, he had still not been able to master his own emotions. Was it even possible to do so? Could any person truly become a master of his passions? For a while he despaired, but then he recalled the story Narada had told him. He thought about the implications of the story, about the choices made by the protagonist and how he had indeed shown great mastery of his own thoughts, words, deeds and feelings. Valmiki felt inspired by the recollection and was filled with a calm serenity such as he had never felt before.

As he recollected the tale of that perfect man of whom Narada had spoken, he found himself reciting it in a particular cadence and rhythm. He realized that this rhythm or metre corresponded to the warbling cries of the kraunchya bird, as if in tribute to the loss that had inspired his recollection. At once, he resolved to compose his own version of the story, using the new form of metre, that others might hear it and be as inspired as he was.

But Narada’s story was only a bare narration of the events, a mere plot outline as we would call it today. In order to make the story attractive and memorable to ordinary listeners, Valmiki would have to add and embellish considerably, filling in details and inventing incidents from his own imagination. He would have to dramatize the whole story in order to bring out the powerful dilemmas faced by the protagonist.

But what right did he have to do so? After all, this was not his story. It was a tale told to him. A tale of a real man and real events. How could he make up his own version of the story?

At this point, Valmiki was visited by Lord Brahma Himself. The Creator told him to set his worries aside and begin composing the work he had in mind. Here is how Valmiki quoted Brahma’s exhortation to him, in an introductory passage not unlike this one that you are reading right now:

Recite the tale of Rama … as you heard it told by Narada. Recite the deeds of Rama that are already known as well as those that are not, his adventures … his battles … the acts of Sita, known and unknown. Whatever you do not know will become known to you. Never will your words be inappropriate. Tell Rama’s story … that it may prevail on earth for as long as the mountains and the rivers exist.

Valmiki needed no further urging. He began composing his poem. He titled it, Rama-yana, meaning literally, The Movements (or Travels) of Rama.

Foretelling the future
The first thing Valmiki realized on completing his composition was that it was incomplete. What good was a story without anyone to tell it to? In the tradition of his age, a bard would normally recite his compositions himself, perhaps earning some favour or payment in coin or kind, more often rewarded only with the appreciation of his listeners. But Valmiki knew that while the form of the story was his creation, the story itself belonged to all his countrymen. He recalled Brahma’s exhortation that Rama’s story must prevail on earth for as long as the mountains and the rivers exist.

So he taught it to his disciples, among whose number were two young boys whose mother had sought sanctuary with him years ago. Those two boys, Luv and Kusa, then travelled from place to place, reciting the Ramayana as composed by their guru. In time, fate brought them before the very Rama described in the poem. Rama knew at once that the poem referred to him and understood that these boys could be none other than his sons by the banished Sita. Called upon by the curious king, Valmiki himself then appeared before Rama and entreated him to take back Sita.

Later, Rama asked Valmiki to compose an additional part to the poem, so that he himself, Rama Chandra, might know what would happen to him in future.

Valmiki obeyed this extraordinary command, and this supplementary section became the Uttara Kaand of his poem.

Valmiki’s Sanskrit rendition of the tale was a brilliant work by any standards, ancient or modern. Its charm, beauty and originality can never be matched. It is a true masterpiece of Indian literature, the ‘adi-kavya’ which stands as the fountainhead of our great cultural record. Even today, thousands of years after
its composition, it remains unsurpassed.

And yet, when we narrate the story of the Ramayana today, it is not Valmiki’s Sanskrit shlokas that we recite. Few of us today have even read Valmiki’s immortal composition in its original. Most have not even read an abridgement. Indeed, an unabridged Ramayana itself, reproducing Valmiki’s verse without
alteration or revisions, is almost impossible to find. Even the most learned of scholars, steeped in a lifetime of study of ancient Sanskrit literature, maintain that the versions of Valmiki’s poem that exist today have been revised and added to by later hands. Some believe that the first and seventh kaands, as well as a number of passages within the other kaands, were all inserted by later writers who preferred to remain anonymous.

Perhaps the earliest retelling of Valmiki’s poem is to be found in the pages of that vast ocean of stories we call the Mahabharata. When Krishna Dwaipayana-Vyasa, more popularly known today as Ved Vyasa, composed his equally legendary epic, he retold the story of the Ramayana in one passage. His retelling differs in small but significant ways.

Sometime later, the burgeoning Buddhist literature, usually composed in the Pali dialect, also included stories from the Ramayana, recast in a somewhat different light. Indeed, Buddhist literature redefined the term dharma itself, restating it as dhamma and changing the definition of this and several other core concepts.

In the eleventh century, a Tamizh poet named Kamban undertook his own retelling of the Ramayana legend. Starting out with what seems to have been an attempt to translate Valmiki’s Ramayana, Kamban nevertheless deviated dramatically from his source material. In Kamban’s Ramayana, entire episodes are deleted, new ones appear, people and places are renamed or changed altogether, and even the order of some major events is revised. Most of all, Kamban’s Ramayana relocates the entire story in a milieu that is recognizably eleventh-century Tamil Nadu in its geography, history, clothes, customs, etc., rather than the north Indian milieu of Valmiki’s Sanskrit original. It is essentially a whole new Ramayana, retold in a far more passionate, rich and colourful idiom.

A few centuries later, Sant Tulsidas undertook his interpretation of the epic. Tulsidas went so far as to title his work Ramcharitramanas, rather than calling it the Ramayana. By doing so, he signalled that he was not undertaking a faithful
translation, but a wholly new variation of his own creation. The differences are substantial.

In art, sculpture, musical renditions, even in dance, mime and street theatrical performances, the story of Valmiki’s great poem has been retold over and over, in countless different variations, some with minor alterations, others with major deviations. The tradition of retellings continues even in modern times, through
poetry, pop music and, of course, in the tradition of Ramlila enactments across the country every year.

Yet how many of these are faithful to Valmiki? How many, if any at all, actually refer to the original Sanskrit text, or even attempt to seek out that text?

Should they even do so?

So many Ramayanas
Does a grandmother consult Valmiki’s Ramayana before she retells the tale to her grandchildren at night? When she imitates a rakshasa’s roar or Ravana’s laugh, or Sita’s tears, or Rama’s stoic manner, whom does she base her performance on? When an actor portrays Rama in a television serial, or a Ramlila performer enacts a scene, or a sculptor chisels a likeness, a painter a sketch, whom do they all refer to? There were no illustrations in Valmiki’s Ramayana. No existing portraits of Rama survive from that age, no recordings of his voice or video records of his deeds.

Indeed, many of the episodes or ‘moments’ we believe are from Valmiki’s Ramayana are not even present in the original Sanskrit work. They are the result of later retellers, often derived from their own imagination. One instance is the ’seema rekha’ believed to have been drawn by Lakshman before leaving Sita in the hut. No mention of this incident exists in Valmiki’s Ramayana. Then there is the constant process of revision that has altered even those scenes that remain constant through various retellings.

For example, take the scene where Sita entreats Rama to allow her to accompany him into exile. In Valmiki’s Ramayana, when Rama tells Sita he has to go into exile, and she asks him to allow her to go with him, he refuses outright. At first, Sita pleads with him and cries earnest tears, but when Rama remains adamant, she grows angry and rebukes him in shockingly harsh terms. She refers to him as a ‘woman disguised as a man’, says that ‘the world is wrong when they say that there is no one greater than Rama’, calls him ‘depressed and frightened’, ‘an actor playing a role’, and other choice epithets. It is one of the longer scenes in Valmiki’s Ramayana, almost equalling in length the entire narration of Rama’s early childhood years!

Tamizh poet Kamban retells this incident in his more compressed, volatile, rich style, reducing Sita’s objections to a couple of brief rebukes: ‘Could it be that the real reason [for Rama not taking her into exile] is that with me left behind, you’ll be free to enjoy yourself in the forest?’

By the time we reach Sant Tulsidas’s recension, Sita’s rebukes are reduced to a few tearful admonitions and appeals.

Were these changes the result of the change in the socially accepted standards of behaviour between men and women in our country? Quite possibly. Tulsidas’s Ramcharitramanas depicts a world quite different from that which Valmiki or even Kamban depict. In fact, each of these three versions differs so drastically in terms of the language used, the clothes worn, the various social and cultural references, that they seem almost independent of one another.

Perhaps the most popularly known version in more recent times is a simplified English translation of a series of Tamizh retellings of selected episodes of the Kamban version, serialized in a children’s magazine about fifty years ago. This version by C. Rajagopalachari, aka Rajaji, was my favourite version as a child too. It was only much later that I found, through my own extensive research that my beloved Rajaji version left out whole chunks of the original story and simplified other parts considerably. Still later, I was sorely disappointed by yet another version by an otherwise great writer, R. K. Narayan. In his severely abridged retelling, the story is dealt with in a manner so rushed and abbreviated, it is reduced to a moral fable rather than the rich, powerful, mythic epic that Valmiki created. English scholar William S. Buck’s nineteenth-century version, dubiously regarded as a classic by English scholars, reads like it might have been composed under the influence of certain intoxicants: in one significant departure from Indian versions, Guha, the tribal chief of the Nisada fisherfolk, without discernible reason, spews a diatribe against Brahmins, and ends by kicking a statue of Lord Shiva. To add further confusion, in the illustration accompanying this chapter, Guha is shown kicking what appears to be a statue of Buddha!

If you travel outside India, farther east, you will find more versions of the Ramayana that are so far removed from Valmiki, that some are barely recognizable as the same story. In one recent study of these various versions of the epic across the different cultures of Asia, an ageing Muslim woman in Indonesia is surprised to learn from the author that we have our own Ramayana in India also!

The kings of Thailand are always named Rama along with other dynastic titles, and consider themselves to be direct descendants of Rama Chandra. The largest Rama temple, an inspiring ruin even today, is situated not in India, or even in Nepal, the only nation that takes Hinduism as its official religion, but in Cambodia. It is called Angkor Vat.

In fact, it is now possible to say that there are as many Ramayanas as there are people who know the tale, or claim to know it. And no two versions are exactly alike.

My Ramayana: a personal odyssey
And yet, would we rather have this democratic melange of versions and variations, or would we rather have a half-remembered, extinct tale recollected only dimly, like a mostly forgotten myth that we can recall only fragments of?

Valmiki’s ‘original’ Ramayana was written in Sanskrit, the language of his time and in an idiom that was highly modern for its age. In fact, it was so avant garde in its style-the kraunchyainspired shloka metre-that it was considered ‘adi’ or the first of its kind. Today, almost none of us can understand or read it in its original form.

Kamban’s overblown rhetoric and colourful descriptions, while magnificently inspired and appropriate for its age, are equally anachronistic in today’s times.

Tulsidas’s interpretation, while rightfully regarded as a sacred text, can seem somewhat heavy-handed in its depiction of man-woman relationships. It is more of a religious tribute to Lord Rama’s divinity than a realistic retelling of the story itself.

In Ved Vyasa’s version, the devices of ill-intentioned Manthara, misguided Kaikeyi and reprehensible Ravana are not the ultimate cause of Rama’s misfortunes. In fact, it is not due to the asuras either. It is Brahma himself, using the mortal avatar of Vishnu to cleanse the world of evil, as perpetuated by Ravana and his asuras, in order to maintain the eternal balance of good and evil.

My reasons for attempting this retelling were simple and intensely personal. As a child of an intensely unhappy broken marriage, a violently bitter failure of parents of two different cultures (Anglo-Indian Christian and Gujarati Hindu) to accept their differences and find common ground, I turned to literature for solace. My first readings were, by accident, in the realm of mythology. So inspired was I by the simple power and heroic victories of those ancient ur-tales, I decided to become a writer and tell stories of my own that would be as great, as inspiring to others. To attempt, if possible, to bridge cultures, and knit together disparate lives by showing the common struggle and strife and, ultimately, triumph of all human souls.

I was barely a boy then. Thirty-odd years of living and battling life later, albeit not as colourful as Valmiki’s thieving and dacoit years, I was moved by a powerful inexplicable urge to read the Ramayana once more. Every version I read seemed to lack something, that vital something that I can only describe as the ‘connection’ to the work. In a troubled phase, battling with moral conundrums of my own, I set to writing my own version of the events. My mind exploded with images, scenes, entire conversations between characters. I saw, I heard, I felt . . . I wrote. Was I exhorted by Brahma Himself? I had no reader in mind, except myself-and everyone. I changed as a person over the course of that writing. I found peace, or a kind of peace. I saw how people could devote their lives to worshipping Rama, or Krishna, or Devi for that matter, my own special ‘Maa’. But I also felt that this story was beyond religion, beyond nationality, beyond race, colour, or creed.

Undertaking to retell a story as great and as precious as our classic adi-kavya is not an enterprise lightly attempted. The first thing I did was study every available edition of previous retellings to know what had been done before, the differences between various retellings, and attempt to understand why. I also spoke extensively to people known and unknown about their knowledge of the poem, in an attempt to trace how millennia of verbal retellings have altered the perception of the tale. One of the most striking things was that most people had never actually read the ‘original’ Valmiki Ramayana. Indeed, most people considered Ramcharitramanas by Tulsidas to be ‘the Ramayana’, and assumed it was an accurate reprise of the Sanskrit work. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

For instance, Valmiki’s Ramayana depicts Dasaratha as having three hundred and fifty concubines in addition to his three titled wives. In keeping with the kingly practices of that age, the ageing raja’s predilection for the fairer sex is depicted honestly and without any sense of misogyny. Valmiki neither comments on nor criticizes Dasaratha’s fondness for fleshly pleasures, he simply states it. When Rama takes leave of his father before going into exile, he does so in the palace of concubines, and all of them weep copiously for the exiled son of their master. When Valmiki describes women, he does so by enumerating the virtues of each part of their anatomy. There is no sense of embarrassment or male chauvinism
evident here: he is simply extolling the beauty of the women characters, just as he does for the male characters like Rama and Hanuman and, yes, even Ravana. Even in Kamban’s version, the women are depicted in such ripe, full-blown language, that a modern reader like myself blushes in embarrassment. Yet the writer exhibits no awkwardness or prurience in these passages–he is simply describing them as he perceived them in the garb and fashion of his time.

By the time we reach Tulsidas and later versions, Rama is no less than a god in human avatar. And in keeping with this foreknowledge, all related characters are depicted accordingly. So Dasaratha’s fleshly indulgences take a backseat, the women are portrayed fully clad and demure in appearance, and their beauty is ethereal rather than earthly.

How was I to approach my retelling? On one hand, the Ramayana was now regarded not as a Sanskrit epic of real events that occurred in ancient India, but as a moral fable of the actions of a human avatar of Vishnu. On the other hand, I felt the need to bring to life the ancient world of epic India in all its glory and magnificence, to explore the human drama as well as the divinity that drove it, to show the nuances of word and action and choice rather than a black-and-white depiction of good versus evil. More importantly, what could I offer that was fresh and new, yet faithful to the spirit of the original story? How could I ensure that all events and characters were depicted respectfully yet realistically?

There was little point in simply repeating any version that had gone before-those already existed, and those who desired to read the Ramayana in any one of its various forms could simply pick up one of those previous versions.

But what had never been done before was a complete, or ’sampoorn’, Ramayana, incorporating the various, often contradictory aspects of the various Indian retellers (I wasn’t interested in foreign perspectives, frankly), while attempting to put us into the minds and hearts of the various characters. To go beyond a simple plot reprise and bring the whole story, the whole world of ancient India, alive. To do what every verbal reteller attempts, or any classical dancer does: make the story live again.

In order to do this, I chose a modern idiom. I simply used the way I speak, an amalgam of English-Hindi-Urdu-Sanskrit, and various other terms from Indian languages. I deliberately used anachronisms like the terms ‘abs’ or ‘morph’. I based every section, every scene, every character’s dialogues and actions on the previous Ramayanas, be it Valmiki, Kamban, Tulsidas, or Vyasa, and even the various Puranas. Everything you read here is based on actual research, or my interpretation of some detail noted in a previous work. The presentation, of course, is wholly original and my own.

Take the example of the scene of Sita entreating Rama to let her accompany him into exile. In my retelling, I sought to explore the relationship between Rama and Sita at a level that is beyond the physical or social plane. I believed that their’s was a love that was eternally destined, and that their bond surpassed all human ties. At one level, yes, I believed that they were Vishnu and Lakshmi. Yet, in the avatars they were currently in, they were Rama and Sita, two young people caught up in a time of great turmoil and strife, subjected to hard, difficult choices. Whatever their divine backgrounds and karma, here and now, they had to play out their parts one moment at a time, as real, flesh-and-blood people.

I adopted an approach that was realistic, putting myself (and thereby the reader) into the feelings and thoughts of both Rama and Sita at that moment of choice. I felt the intensity of their pain, the great sorrow and confusion, the frustration at events beyond their control, and also their ultimate acceptance of what
was right, what must be done, of dharma. In my version, they argue as young couples will at such a time, they express their anger and mixed emotions, but in the end, it is not only through duty and dharma that she appeals to him. In the end, she appeals to him as a wife who is secure in the knowledge that her husband loves her sincerely, and that the bond that ties them is not merely one of duty or a formal social knot of matrimony, but of true love. After the tears, after all other avenues have been mutually discussed and discarded, she simply says his name and appeals to him, as a wife, a lover, and as his dearest friend:

‘Rama,’ she said. She raised her arms to him, asking, not pleading.’Then let me go with you.’

And he agrees. Not as a god, an avatar, or even a prince. But as a man who loves her and respects her. And needs her.

In the footsteps of giants
Let me be clear.

This is not Valmiki’s story. Nor Kamban’s. Nor Tulsidas’s. Nor Vyasa’s. Nor R.K. Narayan’s. Nor Rajaji’s charming, abridged children’s version.

It is Rama’s story. And Rama’s story belongs to every one of us. Black, brown, white, or albino. Old or young. Male or female. Hindu, Christian, Muslim, or whatever faith you espouse. I was asked at a press conference to comment on the Babri Masjid demolition and its relation to my Ramayana. My answer was that the Ramayana had stood for three thousand years, and would stand for all infinity. Ayodhya, in my opinion, is not just a place in north-central Uttar Pradesh. It is a place in our hearts. And in that most sacred of places, it will live forever, burnished and beautiful as no temple of consecrated bricks can ever be.

When Rama himself heard Luv and Kusa recite Valmiki’s Ramayana for the first time, even he, the protagonist of the story, was flabbergasted by the sage’s version of the events-after all, even he had not known what happened to Sita after her exile, nor the childhood of Luv and Kusa, nor had he heard their mother’s version of events narrated so eloquently until then. And in commanding Valmiki to compose the section about future events, Rama himself added his seal of authority to Valmiki, adding weight to Brahma’s exhortation to recite the deeds of Rama that were already known ‘as well as those that are not’.

And so the tradition of telling and retelling the Ramayana began. It is that tradition that Kamban, Tulsidas, Vyasa, and so many others were following. It is through the works of these bards through the ages that this great tale continues to exist among us. If it changes shape and structure, form and even content, it is because that is the nature of the story itself: it inspires the teller to bring fresh insights to each new version, bringing us ever closer to understanding Rama himself.

This is why it must be told, and retold, an infinite number of times. By me. By you. By grandmothers to their grandchildren. By people everywhere, regardless of their identity. The first time I was told the Ramayana, it was on my grandfather’s knee. He was excessively fond of chewing tambaku paan and his breath was redolent of its aroma. Because I loved lions, he infused any number of lions in his Ramayana retellings-Rama fought lions, Sita fought them, I think even Manthara was cowed down by one at one point! My grandfather’s name, incidentally, was Ramchandra Banker. He died of throat cancer caused by his tobacco-chewing habit. But before his throat ceased working, he had passed on the tale to me.

And now, I pass it on to you. If you desire, and only if, then read this book. I believe if you are ready to read it, the tale will call out to you, as it did to me. If that happens, you are in for a great treat. Know that the version of the Ramayana retold within these pages is a living, breathing, new-born avatar of the tale itself. Told by a living author in a living idiom. It is my humble attempt to do for this great story what writers down the ages have done with it in their times.

Maazi naroti
In closing, I’d like to quote briefly from two venerable authors who have walked similar paths. The first is K.M. Munshi whose Krishnavatara series remains a benchmark of the genre of modern retellings of ancient tales. These lines are from Munshi’s own Introduction to the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan edition of 1972:

In the course of this adventure, I had often to depart from legend and myth, for such a reconstruction by a modern author must necessarily involve the exercise of whatever little imagination he has. I trust He will forgive me for the liberty I am taking, but I must write of Him as I see Him in my imagination.

I could not have said it better.

Yuganta, Iravati Karve’s landmark Sahitya Akademi Award-winning study of the Mahabharata, packs more valuable insights into its slender 220-page pocket-sized edition (Disha) than any ten encyclopaedias. In arguably the finest essay of the book, ‘Draupadi’, she includes this footnote:

‘The discussion up to this point is based on the critical edition of the Mahabharata. What follows is my naroti [naroti = a dry coconut shell, i.e. a worthless thing. The word ‘naroti’ was first used in this sense by the poet Eknath].’

In the free musings of Karve’s mind, we learn more about Vyasa’s formidable epic than from most encyclopaedic theses. For only from free thought can come truly progressive ideas.

I urge readers to consider my dried coconut shell reworking of the Ramayana in the same spirit.

If anything in the following pages pleases you, thank those great forebears in whose giant footsteps I placed my own small feet. If any parts displease you, then please blame them on my inadequate talents, not on the tale.

ASHOK K. BANKER
Mumbai
December 2007