Danseuse Shovana Narayan held an interesting lec-dem cum dance presentation on ‘Ramatva’ or what Rama means in our time, rather what his tatva or essence is. Team Viva writes how the panel discussion reinstated Rama as the universal icon of our civilisational culture
Delhi’s culturescape does manage to surprise you with fresh perspectives despite the sound and fury of politics and discussions centered around them. Danseuse Shovana Narayan recently presented an interesting lec-dem cum dance presentation on “Ramatva” or what Rama means in our time, rather what his tatva or essence is. At a time when the word Hindutva has acquired a political connotations, the panel discussion chose to resurrect Rama from the clutches of a few and reinstated him as the universal icon of our civilisational culture and a kavya purush or a figure created by poet, embodying the excellence of human spirit.
Brajbhumi scholar Acharya Shrivatsa Goswami shed an interesting insight into Rama, saying that though there are different interpretations of the godhead, his supremacy and steadfastness was a fait accompli. Rama knew exactly what to do and how to live. On the other hand, Krishna gave a choice and explained the results/effects of the path we choose. Krishna’s life was complex and spanned the entire spectrum of emotions and was at once an embodiment of human frailty and divine entity. But Rama was always an established pillar of faith.
In his mind, Rama is the source of eternal bliss and self-realisation, what we should aspire to be, the embodiment of dharma and maryada that would hold us together as an ideal society, regaling in love and unity. Through his exile, Rama shows us the value of detachment from the world while participating in it and the need to become aware of the Divine in every being. Ram chooses Shabari as the ideal recipient of his wisdom, partakes of her half-eaten fruits and qualifies it as the tastiest food he had ever had in his mortal world.
He had an inclusive worldview, one that accommodated the lesser privileged, nature and animals. In a sense, he said, he represented panth nirapekshta than dharm nirapekshta. He is also so porous to the human touch that from sufi Kabir to Tulsidas, everybody could fill the contours of his concept with their own understanding.
He particularly highlighted the impact of Ramatva on Aurangzeb, who built a grand temple of lord Rama in Chitrakoot, with orders to give it grants from his treasury. Story goes that the destroyer learnt his lesson when a medicine by a local cured his enfeebled army, who, on their way to the Deccan conquest, had fallen prey to disease and injury.
Call it an allegory of a householder’s life but Rama personifies a greatness where you are allowed to ask questions. So though he banished Sita and earned the wrath of generations of women for abandoning a would-be mother and doubting her character, it is true he bore the guilt and knew the seriousness of his actions. So while he lived by the principles of democracy and allowed a washerman to pose a question about his queen, he was reborn as Krishna to right his omissions. In fact, story goes that when a baby Krishna was listening to the Ramayana as told by Yashoda, he stood up when Sita is abducted with an earnest call to lakshman to get his bow and arrow.
Another speaker wondered whether he banished Sita to the forest knowing full well that the free-spirited woman of Mithila, where everybody had a right to freely exchange opinions, would be herself in Valmiki’s sylvan ashram than the stifling royal quarters. And finally the acharya had us know that Ram was such a lover that he did histilak by touching his forehead and nose with that of Sita’s.
Author and journalist Mehru Jaffer redefinedRamatva as Ramaniyat, simply because it implied insaniyaat. Her Rama was a personification of the Ganga Jamunatehzeeb, a multi-cultural spirit of accommodation where opposites have attracted and respected each other and fed on the same fruits of the well-endowed Gangetic plains since the beginning of time. Her vision of Rama is selfless, an all-encompassing figure who draws all to his divine energy field, much like ruhaniyat.
The final comment came from Shovana herself, who in three swift presentations touched on interesting conflicts in the Ramayana. The first was of Bharat, temporarily astir because of the questions raised by others of the futility of holding on to Rama’s padukas and giving up all the power and his ultimate belief that Rama was indeed the best deliverer.
The second conflict was about the washerman who questioned Sita’s piety in public. He wondered if he would ever be heard in the joyous chimes of Ram Rajya and allowed to raise questions. The third was a deft and powerful masterstroke by Shovana herself, dancing to a soliloquy. She asked Rama why he cast Sita away and by extension, condemned generations of women to be the subjects of male abuse.
Why did he put women under the scanner of the male gaze while not giving men the sensitivityIJ She even asked Sita why she bore it all and never raised questions that had silenced women forever. But somewhere, she found it in her to forgive her a bit only because she had condemned Rama to a life of uneasy kingship by surrendering herself to patallok.
Women in later generations would pick up the cue and ask questions, too. And while they criedKab Aoge RamIJ, she hoped the lord would manifest himself yet again.
photos Pankaj Kumar