Ramayana Retold

Perhaps it would help if I put a disclaimer on this post much like the ones that flash on screens right before soap-sagas. 'The views expressed here are solely the author's and do not reflect her religious or political inclinations. Any unflattering comments are meant to be exactly that.'

I love the Indian epics. The Ramayan and Mahabharat are, according to me, the master plans for all stories ever told, certainly those based in India. They have all the ingredients for a successful script - virtuous men and divine women, demons and vamps, vile enemies, enviable harmony disrupted by human errors leading to colossal damages, war, love, betrayal, fight for honour, and the quintessential triumph of good over evil. Now you know Ekta Kapoor has an ocean to dip into for ideas.

What's more, they're not just mere stories to most of us Indians. They imbibe lessons for living. Set ideals to aspire to. Give us Gods to pray to. And show how human weaknesses and our inability (or unwillingness) to conquer our own demons leads to our fall.

Having said that, getting a new interpretation of a story that seems as old as time is always a tempting proposition. So when I stumbled across Ashok Banker's version of Ramayan as a five-book series at the library sometime back, I was quite thrilled. Being well-versed in the events of the story was a big plus, since I came across Book 3 before the other 2. The Bridge of Rama. It intrigued me enough to disregard a friend's not-so-favourable opinion - I read page after page with avid interest, wanting to know which other event or character would come out in way I least expected. But there was something not-quite-right, and I wondered if I was just trying to find faults. In the end, it did what a good book series should probably do - made me want to read the next one.

I managed to get my hands on another one, the first of the series this time, but as I got it scanned for issue, I wondered if I was taking this book because it was a re-telling of one of my favourite childhood stories, or just because it was proving to be good reading. As I get deeper into the pages, I think the latter would be more applicable, if at all. I would hardly recommend this to someone who wanted to know the story for the epic that it is. I would not want them to imagine Lakshman and Shatrughan referring to each other as 'Luck' and 'Shot', for starters. Neither would I want to know about lustful thoughts that the septuagenarian King Dashratha was entertaining. If you're looking for a story about magic, demons, royalty, skillful combat, some love and lots of lust, you're in the right page, i mean place. As a well-paced, well-sketched story, there's not much you can fault it for.

I would like to think of myself as a non-fanatic, tolerant of contradicting religious opinions and open to new ideas kind of person (don't we all?). What I mean is, I would not kill for a once -was temple which then had a mosque, or pillage a treasure of ancient documents because it served as research to a work that I felt showed a past king in lesser light. In fact, I enjoy Rama being portrayed as a human and not a demi-god, or sharing the author's imaginative re-constructions of the story (some of them make so much sense!). I don't think it's sacrilege to look at characters as familiar to you as your own family through a different looking-glass. But I do mind it being written in a language that could as easily be that in a Harry Potter, Bartimaeus (I adore this one too!) or yet another magical story set in an exotic land. I am not happy with run-of-the-mill vocabulary, and the predictable descriptions (Ravana, the Dark Lord? Echoing something called Harry Potter?) . I don't personally associate good writing with fantabulous, check the dictionary kind of words. But for me, the profession of writing is something that comes with the power to bend words of common use, pepper them with some lovely a-word-a-day vocabulary, and bring them to life in a way hitherto unseen.

Perhaps it's easy to pass judgment as a common, unqualified reader - one of many. This is not to take anything away from the sheer effort of putting together a story that is so much a part of a nation's fabric, the research and the creativity of reading differently a story heard umpteen times on your grandmother's lap.

It's a tale I enjoyed, reminded me slightly of some others I had read in the way it was told, but left me wishing for the real thing. Then again, I might be in the minority. Don't pull me up, I did put up a disclaimer!