Challaa Hollywood Ramayana bananey
Apr 14th, 2008 by Ashok
No, not my Ramayana.
(That’s happening on another front and I’m told is at the painful, dragging stage where protracted contractual negotiations and lawyering has been going on for months, and will be going on for months longer. I’ll post about that as and when I have confirmed news.)
This is the animated version of the Valmiki Ramayana that Dreamworks SKG commissioned Neil Gaiman to write.
This was several years ago, and the project has long since been shelved. Gaiman has written about it on his blog–which, by the way, is the most consistently readable writer’s blog on the internet, and which I’ve been following intermittently since its inception–and has now talked about the experience on a podcast for the forthcoming British Library exhibition on the Ramayana.
Jon Fawcett, Senior Events Officer, The British Library, was kind enough to send me a link to the podcast. (Ravi Swami, who interviewed Neil Gaiman for the podcast, also happened to send me the same link–it’s posted on the Readerswrite page as well.)
That’s because The BL has invited me to participate in the four month long event as well. More about that later, but here’s the link to the Neil Gaiman interview below.
It’s a sometimes irritating, often fascinating, always entertaining and informative interview. Gaiman is a lovely writer of gracefully written, elegantly crafted fantasy novels and graphic novels, and of course, screenplays like the recent Beowulf. As with any foreigner, it’s immensely irritating to hear him mispronounce ‘Ramayana’, and ‘Valmiki’ and ‘Dharma’, completely misunderstand and misinterpret Dharma itself, among other things, and demonstrate that even after all his research and work on the epic, he clearly has no clue what the Ramayana is about!
Worse, he constantly laments Hollywood’s lack of ability (alongwith America-in-general’s lack of ability) to understand cultural artifacts like the Ramayana), and manages to misinterpret the Mahabharata as well in passing comments, although the Mahabharata misinterpretations are more common ones, and not unique to foreigners.
But he’s an otherwise intelligent, talented, and highly articulate writer, and it’s always a pleasure listening to him or reading him comment. And Ravi Swami, the interviewer, while also having a somewhat niggling British accent, demonstrates that he definitely does understand the culture and the epic impressively well. In fact, I’d venture to say that Ravi’s own questions, many of which are in the form of somewhat rambling but always interesting comments unto themselves, are far more interesting than Gaiman’s foreign-babble about “monkeys and bears” and superficial passes at Hindu mythology.
And in case, my criticism overweighs my opinion overall (as it often seems to do to people who aren’t familiar with my genial rib-poking style), then let me be clear: I still love Neil Gaiman as a writer, just not as a writer of anything associated with Indian (or for that matter, after hearing this interview, any foreign) culture that he’s not intimately familiar with since birth.
It’s a really interesting interview and what it does is showcase Hollywood in particular and the western world in general’s mystified frown at the grand cultural edifice that we know and love so well. It also has lots of fascinating and enjoyable commentary by the hugely talented Gaiman on fantasy and myth in general, and that’s well worth the price of admission–which, of course, is free! :~)
But don’t take my word for all this. Listen to the podcast yourself and form your own opinions. It’s around 45 minutes long and deserves focussed listening. So…enjoy!
Click here to directly open a window and listen to Neil Gaiman in conversation with Ravi Swami (You can also do a right-click and download the whole interview, to listen at your leisure.)
OR
Click hear to visit the British Library Ramayana Podcast Page
