An epic return

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AN EPIC RETURN

January 1,2001, India-today (New Delhi)

By S. Kalidas

ASEPICS GO, ITHAS ALL the gripping ingredients that make a saga
universal and everlasting. With love, loyalty, seduction and greed in
all their varying shades, with its colourful characters-benign and
evil?few stories have seized human imagination through the millennia as
the story of Ram, the prince of Ayodhya. In India, of course, the
Ramayan continues to evoke reverence and on such is its fascination that
its geographical reach spans South-east Asia, and as we realize now,
even Russia; besides Hinduism, it manifests in Buddhist, Jain and Sikh
traditions too.

Surprisingly, it was not at Ayodhya or Panchvati that people caught up
with the many Rams and Sitas, Lakshmans and Hanumans currently touring
India. Coming from as far as Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia, Myanmar,
Singapore and even Russia, the artistes have been invited by the Indian
Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) and the Khajuraho Millennium
Committee (KMC) to perform at Delhi, Khajuraho, Varanasi and Chitrakoot.

Today the legacy of Ram is being sought to be pigeon-holed in one
particular Brahminical canon. This multi-splendoured celebration of the
epic comes to reinforce the fact that to achieve wider, cross-cultural
relevance, history has to become the fodder of legends, and legends need
to undergo a metamorphosis to emerge as quasi-universal myths.

Ayodhya is, at its universal best, and island of purity in the minds of
countless people across the world. It is not only the small town on the
banks of the Sarayu, in what we today know as Uttar Pradesh, but also
the capital of the kings of Thailand who even today are given the title
of Ram. It is the sacred space created by the Balinese court dancers
practicing the Adi Darma (original faith). Even the vast Hindu relics of
Angkor Wat in Cambodia. Or more ironically, a candyfloss set in the
studios of the erstwhile Soviet Union where Gennady Pechnikov has made a
career out of playing Ram in films, television and theatre for over 40
years.

In this scheme, while the moraland ethical import of the saga remains
constant, the details tend to vary, adapted as they are to specific
temporal and cultural contexts. By trying to concretize these myths into
specificities of history and geography, one only limits their area of
influence and relevance.

Khajuraho celebrates the human spirit in all its sensual and sacred
abandon. Its magnificent 1,000-year-old temples thus served as a magical
backdrop last week to recreate the multiple versions of Ramayan. The
open-air stage in the shadow of the chitragupta temple became the sacred
space where for each of the seven nights this most complete of human
dramas was played out in different languages, in different costumes by
different nationslities.

There was the Bali Dewata Dance Group from Indonesia, the Ramakien from
Thailand, the Singapore Chinese Opera Ensemble, the Myanmar Ramayan
Group, the Royal Cambodian Ballet Rroupe and the one and only Lord Ram
of Russia, Pechnikov. From India two troupes were invited?the Margi
Kathakali Troupe from Kerala and the Ranga Sri Little Ballet Troupe from
Bhopal. Jointly organized by the ICCR, the Mdhya Pradesh Kala Parishad
and the KMC, the Khajuraho International Ramayan festival brought to an
end the year-long Khajuraho millennium celebrations.

With Vice-President Krishna Kant, state Governor Bhai Mahavir and Chief
Minister Digvijay Singh gracing the occasion, the tiny hamlet of
Khajuraho was inundated with securitymen and local bureaucrats. Whether
the festival accrues any benefits to Khajuraho or the tourism industry
in Madhya Pradesh is a moot point. The organizers, however, pledged that
an international dance event would be added to its cultural calendar
apart from the regular dance fest held here. For which the Government
needs to make this remote village more accessible, or it will continue
to be a rich tourists? niche that it is now.

In a festival of this sort it is understood that only selected episodes
from the vast epic can be enacted. Expectedly, virtually all the troupes
chose key episodes like Sita's abduction from Panchvati, Hanuman's
flight across the sea to Ravan's Lanka to contact Sita imprisoned in
Ashok Vatika, the final battle between Ram, Lakshman and Ravan and their
armies, and the heroicreturn of the divine couple and their entourage to
Ayodhya. Immensely interesting were the subtle, stylistic details of
characterization, costumes and presentation.

For almost half a century now, the Ranga Sri Liffle Ballet Troupe has
been a cause celebre in the annals of modern Indian theatre. Set up by
the late Shanti Bardhan, a brilliant acolyte of Uday Shankar, in 1952,
its novel adaptation of the Ramayan through the use of masked characters
in puppet-like costumes, was a huge success, winning the first ever
Edinburgh Festival Award in 1964 besides many other accolades. Bardhan?s
wife Gul, in her 70s now, deserves kudos for not only keeping the show
alive despite many hurdles but also continuing to dance till today.

However, like many other modern presentations, this one too stereotypes
the character of Ravan by depicting him in a Kathakali type of costume.
The not-so-subliminal message it sends out is that the dark south Indian
represents the demon amongst us. Most latter-day north Indian versions
also strait-jacket the character into an ugly, obsessive, bungling fool,
which is far from what the earlier Sanskrit and Pali texts portray.

Ravan, in many ways, is actually a far more interesting, complex and
complete character than Ram himself: amaster of the shastras (pedagogic
texts), a sadhaka (one who combines meditation with asceticism) capable
of moving Lord Shiva to grant him a boon, a connoisseur of the arts and
a musician par excellence, a poet of repute, a brave man and not
insignificantly, a Ram-bhakta (devotee of Ram) himself. All Ramayan
texts state that it was ordained Ram be born as a human, with all human
frailties, to play out the saga of Ramayan, with Ravan as his adversary.
Ravan, it should be remembered, is believed to have gone to swarga
(heaven) after death.

Similarly, the Cambodian version portrays Hanuman, the monkey God, with
intense, but perhaps misplaced, realism. Here Hanuman is more of a comic
monkey?replete with simian mannerisms like picking out and eating
lice?than the son of Anjana and the wind God, Pawan. In any case,
realism was never an ideal in oriental or Indian art. There always needs
to be an element of stylization, which marks the artistic endeavour from
banal reality. The second century text, Natya Shastra, underlines this
vital difference between the dramatic (natya dharmi) and the commonplace
(loka dharmi). So though at one level the incredibly real antics of the
Cambodian Hanuman drew applause, it did irritate purists like Pechnikov.
?Hanuman was not an ordinary monkey,? he complained after the show.

>From Bali to Myanmar, the varied interpretations of the epic are a
fascinating pageant of human endeavour, am bition, frailties and
obsessions. In each of these variations, apart from the plot and
storyline, there are several similarities in the style of dancing and
music that underline the Indian influence.

It is remarkable that India exercised this influence not through the
force of the sword or of colonialism like many other religions of the
world but by the power of ideas and moral strength. Which is precisely
the essence of Hindu dharma as embodied in the multiple versions of the
Ramayan.




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<html>
<b><font size=+2>AN EPIC RETURN</font></b>
<p>January 1,2001, India-today (New Delhi)
<p>By <b>S. Kalidas</b>
<p>ASEPICS GO, ITHAS ALL the gripping ingredients that make a saga universal
and everlasting. With love, loyalty, seduction and greed in all their varying
shades, with its colourful characters-benign and evil?few stories have
seized human imagination through the millennia as the story of Ram, the
prince of Ayodhya. In India, of course, the Ramayan continues to evoke
reverence and on such is its fascination that its geographical reach spans
South-east Asia, and as we realize now, even Russia; besides Hinduism,
it manifests in Buddhist, Jain and Sikh traditions too.
<p>Surprisingly, it was not at Ayodhya or Panchvati that people caught
up with the many Rams and Sitas, Lakshmans and Hanumans currently touring
India. Coming from as far as Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia, Myanmar, Singapore
and even Russia, the artistes have been invited by the Indian Council for
Cultural Relations (ICCR) and the Khajuraho Millennium Committee (KMC)
to perform at Delhi, Khajuraho, Varanasi and Chitrakoot.
<p>Today the legacy of Ram is being sought to be pigeon-holed in one particular
Brahminical canon. This multi-splendoured celebration of the epic comes
to reinforce the fact that to achieve wider, cross-cultural relevance,
history has to become the fodder of legends, and legends need to undergo
a metamorphosis to emerge as quasi-universal myths.
<p>Ayodhya is, at its universal best, and island of purity in the minds
of countless people across the world. It is not only the small town on
the banks of the Sarayu, in what we today know as Uttar Pradesh, but also
the capital of the kings of Thailand who even today are given the title
of Ram. It is the sacred space created by the Balinese court dancers practicing
the Adi Darma (original faith). Even the vast Hindu relics of Angkor Wat
in Cambodia. Or more ironically, a candyfloss set in the studios of the
erstwhile Soviet Union where Gennady Pechnikov has made a career out of
playing Ram in films, television and theatre for over 40 years.
<p>In this scheme, while the moraland ethical import of the saga remains
constant, the details tend to vary, adapted as they are to specific temporal
and cultural contexts. By trying to concretize these myths into specificities
of history and geography, one only limits their area of influence and relevance.
<p>Khajuraho celebrates the human spirit in all its sensual and sacred
abandon. Its magnificent 1,000-year-old temples thus served as a magical
backdrop last week to recreate the multiple versions of Ramayan. The open-air
stage in the shadow of the chitragupta temple became the sacred space where
for each of the seven nights this most complete of human dramas was played
out in different languages, in different costumes by different nationslities.
<p>There was the Bali Dewata Dance Group from Indonesia, the Ramakien from
Thailand, the Singapore Chinese Opera Ensemble, the Myanmar Ramayan Group,
the Royal Cambodian Ballet Rroupe and the one and only Lord Ram of Russia,
Pechnikov. From India two troupes were invited?the Margi Kathakali Troupe
from Kerala and the Ranga Sri Little Ballet Troupe from Bhopal. Jointly
organized by the ICCR, the Mdhya Pradesh Kala Parishad and the KMC, the
Khajuraho International Ramayan festival brought to an end the year-long
Khajuraho millennium celebrations.
<p>With Vice-President Krishna Kant, state Governor Bhai Mahavir and Chief
Minister Digvijay Singh gracing the occasion, the tiny hamlet of Khajuraho
was inundated with securitymen and local bureaucrats. Whether the festival
accrues any benefits to Khajuraho or the tourism industry in Madhya Pradesh
is a moot point. The organizers, however, pledged that an international
dance event would be added to its cultural calendar apart from the regular
dance fest held here. For which the Government needs to make this remote
village more accessible, or it will continue to be a rich tourists? niche
that it is now.
<p>In a festival of this sort it is understood that only selected episodes
from the vast epic can be enacted. Expectedly, virtually all the troupes
chose key episodes like Sita's abduction from Panchvati, Hanuman's flight
across the sea to Ravan's Lanka to contact Sita imprisoned in Ashok Vatika,
the final battle between Ram, Lakshman and Ravan and their armies, and
the heroicreturn of the divine couple and their entourage to Ayodhya. Immensely
interesting were the subtle, stylistic details of characterization, costumes
and presentation.
<p>For almost half a century now, the Ranga Sri Liffle Ballet Troupe has
been a cause celebre in the annals of modern Indian theatre. Set up by
the late Shanti Bardhan, a brilliant acolyte of Uday Shankar, in 1952,
its novel adaptation of the Ramayan through the use of masked characters
in puppet-like costumes, was a huge success, winning the first ever Edinburgh
Festival Award in 1964 besides many other accolades. Bardhan?s wife Gul,
in her 70s now, deserves kudos for not only keeping the show alive despite
many hurdles but also continuing to dance till today.
<p>However, like many other modern presentations, this one too stereotypes
the character of Ravan by depicting him in a Kathakali type of costume.
The not-so-subliminal message it sends out is that the dark south Indian
represents the demon amongst us. Most latter-day north Indian versions
also strait-jacket the character into an ugly, obsessive, bungling fool,
which is far from what the earlier Sanskrit and Pali texts portray.
<p>Ravan, in many ways, is actually a far more interesting, complex and
complete character than Ram himself: amaster of the shastras (pedagogic
texts), a sadhaka (one who combines meditation with asceticism) capable
of moving Lord Shiva to grant him a boon, a connoisseur of the arts and
a musician par excellence, a poet of repute, a brave man and not insignificantly,
a Ram-bhakta (devotee of Ram) himself. All Ramayan texts state that it
was ordained Ram be born as a human, with all human frailties, to play
out the saga of Ramayan, with Ravan as his adversary. Ravan, it should
be remembered, is believed to have gone to swarga (heaven) after death.
<p>Similarly, the Cambodian version portrays Hanuman, the monkey God, with
intense, but perhaps misplaced, realism. Here Hanuman is more of a comic
monkey?replete with simian mannerisms like picking out and eating lice?than
the son of Anjana and the wind God, Pawan. In any case, realism was never
an ideal in oriental or Indian art. There always needs to be an element
of stylization, which marks the artistic endeavour from banal reality.
The second century text, Natya Shastra, underlines this vital difference
between the dramatic (natya dharmi) and the commonplace (loka dharmi).
So though at one level the incredibly real antics of the Cambodian Hanuman
drew applause, it did irritate purists like Pechnikov. ?Hanuman was not
an ordinary monkey,? he complained after the show.
<p>From Bali to Myanmar, the varied interpretations of the epic are a fascinating
pageant of human endeavour, am bition, frailties and obsessions. In each
of these variations, apart from the plot and storyline, there are several
similarities in the style of dancing and music that underline the Indian
influence.
<p>It is remarkable that India exercised this influence not through the
force of the sword or of colonialism like many other religions of the world
but by the power of ideas and moral strength. Which is precisely the essence
of Hindu dharma as embodied in the multiple versions of the Ramayan.
<br>&nbsp;
<p>&nbsp;</html>

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