A Twist To the Tale

[Guest guest]

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