A Twist To the Tale

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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. 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 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