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Tauji was unanimously voted as the treasurer to the Ram-leela committee this year

which gave us a new topic for the table top discussion this season. Why do we need

to stage the saga of Ramayan year after year and with an increased budget? Not

that people dont know already what the story is like, neither can we add twists and

turns to it. Is it a meager reminder to us as to what our society and life stand for,

and the values that should govern our lives?

Taujimade a simple answer, that even though a lot of city dwellers may find the

staging obsolete, a lot of people from the rural areas still like to see the story

staged on a magnanimous scale. Additionally, every year a new genre and

generation is added to us, our duty being to instill the set of values in our

youngsters, that includes me, he laughed.

And do we succeed, in establishing the so called Ram-rajya, I countered.

And every elder thus told me that one of the values that Ramayana instills is of

patience and the duties towards the society, which is precisely what they are doing.But one thing that I made them agree upon with me was the changing forms of

Ravan and thus the need of flexibility to defy them.

During the discussion, I was told one more astonishing fact by Tauji that more

money was spent on Ravan then Ram during the course of act. It is quite

understandable owing to the fact that Ravan was a king at the time of his death

while Ram was wandering in jungles having abandoned his kingdom on his fathers

wish. However, the thing to note is that Ravan despite being villainous in character

was applauded more by the audience then Ram himself. This anomaly is explained

in Ramcharitmanas by Tulsidasji in which he has accorded Ravan with more opulent

dialogues than Ram so as to portray Ram as serene, sagacious yet powerful king,while Ravan is more arrogant and self-righteous.

This self-righteousness or pride is one of the inherent features of Ravan as well as

the desperados all over. Not that it comes naturally to them; it has to be nourished

with external sustenance especially with the pride of those at levels higher than

them. In his case, Ravan prayed to Lord Brahma and forfeited his head 10 times to

Lord Shiva, accentuating their smugness gaining favors. With his death a life may

have ended but the idea of Ravanism certainly did not. His 10 heads have evolved

over time into forces much more appalling than his own, sometimes like Hydra

two heads growing at the place where one is cut.

Just like Ravan, the pride of iniquity is kept animated by asserting the righteousness

of those a cut above. This systematic infestation allows freedom of wrong-doing at

every echelon. The immoral is no longer confined to black; it has matured and

trespassed its limits into gray. Fraudulence, sleaze, gluttony are steadily resolving

themselves as the underlying prerequisites for survival.

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These are the Ravans that Ram should kill not on a stage melodrama but on realms

beyond it. The values that have been preserved in our culture for eons should not

fall prey to this predator, for in their absence no staging of Ramayana alone could

save us.