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Srimate SrivanSatakopa Sri Vedanta Desika Yatindra Mahadesikaya nama:

 

                       A Twist To the Tale

 

Movie buffs would appreciate the crucial role played in any movie by the Director. He is the man behind the scenes, making actors, technicians and others involved in movie-making, pull together, put in their best and turn out superb performances that ultimately make the movie a box-office hit. He is the unseen thread, nay, the sheet anchor, running throughout the film, whose imprint is seen in every scene of endearing emotion, convulsing comedy, hair-raising stunts or a nerve-racking climax. It is to his tunes that actors dance and speak, mere puppets in the artful and expert hands of the master Puppeteer, who turns out an excellent show irrespective of the inexpert hands he might be forced to deal with. It is he who vets the script for appropriate angles, thinks of strategic turns in the story-line and endows the screen play with sufficient cinematic appeal, transforming what is merely a good book, into a great visual presentation acclaimed by even die-hard critics. When we see a scene of great emotional portrayal by the hero, we have to remember that the scene was perhaps shot a dozen times, with the Director unrelentingly tutoring the actor to display just the correct quantum of emotion, never giving-up till the hero has it just right, with neither overacting nor underplay.

 

“All the world is a stage” said the great Bard, telling us that perhaps all our lives are enactments of the Great Human Melodrama. All of us, if only we stop to think for a minute, appear to be acting out our roles in an unending Cosmic Film, which has infinitely continuing shows. The only difference between mundane films and the Cosmic one is that while the former have quite a huge audience, the latter has just one person, the Lord, watching it, untiringly and repetitively. Players come and go, shedding old roles and donning new ones, but the show goes on forever, like an extremely extended version of “Dynasty” or “Hum Log”, an unending soap opera with events repeating themselves at regular intervals.

 

Swami Desikan likens the Lord’s avatArAs too to great dramas, enacted by the Lord, ably supported by His Consort, with the three-fold objectives of destroying evil, saving the saintly and re-establishing Righteousness on a firm footing—

 

“DEvO na: shubham AtanOtu dasadhA nirvartayan bhoomikAm

RangE dhAmani labdha nirbhara rasai: adhyakshitO bhAvukai:”

 

Not only does the Lord turn out excellent performances on His own account-- He also ensures, as the Director of all these scintillating shows, that the rest of the players too perform their parts to perfection. And to keep the story gripping and suspense-filled till the end, the Lord, the Master storyteller and Director that He is, endows it with enough twists and turns to retain audience interest till the very end.

 

Though the masterly imprint of this Cosmic Director’s touch is to be found in each and every enactment, it is particularly evident in the RAmavatAra.

 

Everyone would agree that as an Epic, Srimad Ramayanam has stood the test of time. People have been expounding on and listening to discourses on the Epic, for millions of years now, without the subject palling in any way on the listeners or the raconteurs. And the large number of movies that have been made to portray the story, whether it be “SampoorNa Ramayanam” of yore or Ramanand Sagar’s TV masterpiece “Ramayan”, the performances have run to full audiences, who, though, have known the story, in all its intricate detail, since their childhood.

 

Coming back to the Lord’s penchant for turning out the perfect movie, endowing the tale with unexpected but essential twists and turns at the appropriate points and thereby ensuring smooth flow of the story along the desired lines, we can find quite a few instances of such contrived events in the Ramayana.

 

First and foremost, it is Dasaratha’s near-defeat at the hands of SambarAsurA and the timely assistance rendered by KaikEyI, that make the Emperor grant her two boons, which are indeed crucial to the story and but for which Ramayana would end as soon as it began. One thing worthy of note here is that Dasaratha is acclaimed to be a matchless warrior, whose assistance is sought by all, including the Chief of Celestials Indra, for getting the better of asurAs. This being so, why should an Emperor of proven prowess falter in battle against just another asurA? Here is where the Divine Director’s “touch” is seen, laying the foundation for Sri Rama’s banishment to the jungle, on which hinges the whole course of the Epic.

 

Coming next to the day prior to the infructuous Coronation planned by Dasaratha, Sri Valmiki appends an exclamatory mark (“YadricchayA”), to the sloka about the festivities coming to the notice of the scheming hunchback Manthara.

Her movements severly circumscribed by her deformity, Manthara normally stays on level ground, finding climbing or any other form of exercise painful. However, on the day prior to Rama becoming the Prince of Ayodhya, Manthara takes it into her head to climb the steep steps to the palace terrace, from where she has a bird’s eye view of the enthusiastic preparations for the Coronation.

 

“GyAti dAsI yatOjAtA KaikEyyAstu sahOshitA

 prAsAdam chandra sankAsam ArurOha yadricchayA”

 

 This, in turn, makes her hatch plans for ensuring KaikEyI’s supremacy in Dasaratha’s royal household and to incite KaikEyI to seek the long-forgotten boons from the Emperor.

 

Had she not climbed on to the terrace contrary to her normal habits, Manthara would have been blissfully unaware of the goings on and Sri Rama would have become Prince and heir without any hindrance and everyone would have lived happily ever after (except perhaps those tormented by Ravana, whose demise was the core objective of the Ramavatara). It is this seemingly innocuous action on the part of Manthara, engineered by the Director, which keeps the story going in the appointed direction. 

 

Another masterstroke of the Author-Director of Srimad Ramayana is the seemingly irrelevant departure of Sri Bharata, along with his inseparable brother Shatrughna, to the distant land of his maternal uncle Asvapati. At the very beginning of Ayodhya Kandam, in fact in its very first sloka, we are told that Sri Bharata departed Ayodhya-

 

“GacchatA mAtula kulam BharatEna mahAtmanA

 ShatrughnO nitya shatrughna: neeta: preeti puraskrita:”

 

We wonder, why should we be told of an apparently routine visit by a nephew to the uncle’s house? We must remember here that not a single word or sloka of Srimad Ramayana is redundant or repetitive.

 

The significance of this move would not have been lost on readers, who would have realised that had Bharata been present when KaikEyI hatched and implemented her plans, they would never have come to pass, given Sri Bharata’s subsequent outbursts when he comes to know of them. Sri Bharata would have put his foot down with great force and ensured that no obstacle was created in the way of Sri Rama’s coronation. It is thus the contrived removal of Sri Bharata from the scene that makes it possible for events to proceed on their appointed lines.

 

We now come to another turning point, apparently engineered to ensure Sri Sita’s abduction and the subsequent events. Here too, Sri Valmiki, wondering at the Divine Hand behind the events, qualifies his statements with another “YadricchayA” (accidentally). This involves the arrival of ShoorpanakhA, apropos of nothing, quite by “coincidence”, at the PanchavatI parNashAlA, where Sri Rama, Sita and lakshmana are living in peace. We must remember here that DandakAraNyam is a huge forest, with absolutely no necessity for two individuals to run into each other, even if they were to roam about the forests for years together. Yet, within a short time of the divine trio reaching there, they encounter Shoorpanakha, “accidentally”—“yadricchayA”. Had this not happened, and had the trio been left to themselves, they would have finished their sojourn of 14 years at PanchavatI itself and returned safe and sound to Ayodhya. This, however, was not to be, for Shoorpanakha developed an infatuation for Rama, which led to her nose being cut off by Lakshmana, ultimately resulting in the abduction of Sri Sita.

 

Ravana might well hatch a plan involving MArIcha as the golden deer, but why should the extremely intelligent and wise Sita fall a prey to this simple strategem? It is not as if She has never seen beautiful things, for, as the apple of Sri Janaka’s eyes and as the eldest daughter-in-law of Emperor Dasaratha, there could not have been much that She wouldn’t have seen or possessed. Yet, like any ordinary girl in her teens, She develops a fascination for this “mAyA mrigam”, apparently to help the story line proceed as per schedule.

 

Another event with obviously the same purpose is Sita’s abuse of Lakhsmana for not rushing to the rescue of Sri Rama, whom She believes to be in distress, judging from the great cry for help. Sita knows very well that Sri Rama is invincible and not at all likely to be troubled in any way by a single rAkshasa, as She has seen with Her very own eyes how He single-handedly disposed of the fourteen thousand-strong army of Khara, DooshaNa and Trisiras. If She is unaware of Her husband’s prowess, who indeed would be! Yet, Sita reacts like any ordinary woman, distressed over the possibility of Her husband being in danger. This too, readers would agree, is but another strategy to help the events along, towards the ultimate end of Ravana samhAram.

 

The Master-Director’s hand is evident also in the timely and dramatic  prevention of Sri Bharata from entering the sacrificial fire, intolerant of even a day’s delay in Sri Rama’s return.

 

Thus, from beginning to end, Srimad Ramayana furnishes ample evidence of events being engineered towards the intended end, by an unknown Divine Hand, that of the Master Director intent on endowing the tale with appropriate twists and turns, often through the introduction on the scene of new characters. One has to agree, however, that the plausibility of events or credibility of narrative has in no way been affected by these contrived twists to the tale, which have, if anything, added to its beauty and ambit, bringing into play a wide array of emotions affording ample scope for an excellent performance. Is it any wonder, then, that Srimad Ramayanam has remained a box-office hit for millennia together, retaining viewers’ interest generation after generation, despite the fairly simple story line?

 

Srimate Sri LakshmINrismiha divya paduka sevaka SrivanSatakopa Sri Narayana Yatindra Mahadesikaya nama:

dasan, sadagopan

 



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