You are here: SriPedia - SriRangaSri - Archives - Apr 2004

SriRangaSri List Archive: Message 00059 Apr 2004

 
Apr 2004 Indexes ( Date | Thread | Author )
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]


                               
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

 



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]




 
Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
     http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SriRangaSri/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
     SriRangaSri-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
     http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
 


[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next] [Date Index ] [Thread Index ] [Author Index ]
Home Page
http://www.ibiblio.org/sripedia
srirangasri-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
To subscribe to the list