My thoughts on Ramayana

I did my schooling in a traditional Christian school in Bangalore, so I did not know as much of Ramayana and Mahabharatha as I knew of the Bible. I was not lucky enough to hear these stories from my grandparents either, because they did not live with me. The other day when I found the book ‘Indian Epics Retold’ by R.K Narayan in the library, I picked it up instantly and brought it home, fully excited.
I just finished reading Ramayana from this book, and was fascinated by the story no doubt, but there were a lot of things that got me bemused. R.K.N has based his writing on Kamban’s Ramayana, and I really don’t know how authentic his version of Ramayana was nor did I bother to find out. I just treated myself to the brilliant narration of R.K.N and wanted to share some of my thoughts in this post.

After reading the first few chapters I found myself wondering why so much importance was being given to Rama alone. After all, Dasharatha had three more sons, and it was only natural that he should love Bharatha, the son of his favorite wife, Kaikeyi more than the other sons. Rama was the incarnation of Lord Vishnu,but the people in Ayodhya didn’t know about it, did they?
I really felt pity for Lakshmana throughout the story because he is almost always ignored. When Rama is going to exile, he readily follows Rama, and we see that Sumitra cries because Rama is leaving, but does not show any sign of grief for the departure of her own son. Lakshmana shows his intelligence in many situations, I’d say he was more brilliant than Rama, because he warns Rama before he kills Vali, and even when Sita tells him to go and rescue Rama during the Mareecha incident, he tells her not to jump to conclusions and stays by her side to guard her, but finally relents when she starts doubting his intentions. He does not take to believing people very easily unlike Rama. If Rama listened to Lakshmana, and did not blindly follow the Golden Deer he could have easily avoided Sita’s abduction.
The most intriguing part of the story was when Sita sees Rama for the first time when he’s entering the palace, and falls in love with him. The way the author explains this romance is really cute. He says that Sita becomes restless and cannot bring herself to sleep, nothing interests her, and she wonders who the handsome young man is. Rama too goes through the same emotions, but does not exhibit them because it is unbecoming of a man to let such petty things bother him. To think of Gods falling in love, was kind of amusing to me. :)
Vali’s episode brought tears to my eyes because he praises Rama a lot before going out to fight with Sughreeva , and finally becomes a prey to Rama’s arrow itself. I really felt bad for Vali, but Rama finally explains to him why he did what he did and Vali bids good bye rather happily.
The introduction of Ravana is kind of funny. His cruelty is showcased in a rather amusing way, he’s shown to have Gods working for him and the thing that got me laughing was that even the moon was afraid to pass through the corridors of Ravana’s palace for fear of being captured by him. Ha ha that was really naïve.
The characters like Jatayu, Ahalya and Thataka add spice to the story. Being a ‘diehard’ hater of the Harry Potter series, I’d say that Ramayana makes for a better read, and it is a complete package with romance, action, morals and everything that you’d want in a story.