Rama through a Different Lens

The story of this unique fusion of ideas began when the parents first started thinking of staging a Ramleela to familiarise their children with the epic as well as with the Hindi language. “But when they sat down they realised that a person from the north has a different version of Ramayana than from the ones from Bengal or Orissa or Kerela,” Sen recalls. This confusion led them to rethink the narrative and write a script that relied directly on written sources. Sen,a video editor of documentary films by profession,got sucked in as the researcher for the play. She ploughed through many versions of the epic — Valmiki’s Ramayana,Tulsidas’ Ramcharitmanas,Tamil poet Kamba’s Ramavataram,the Persian/Arabic and Jain versions,and even Amit Chaudhuri’s An Infatuation — and extracted episodes that the parents’ group accepted and agreed upon. “We even borrowed from dominant folk traditions thrice” she says.

The film is essentially a chronicle of the play and the emails that the parents exchanged with each other while finalising the script and treatment. The shooting,done by a “ shaadi wala video guy”,is far from professionally slick and the acting is amateurish. But the merging of the ideas is brilliantly achieved. The music score also lifts the spirit of the film — a track list of about 20 songs has captured Ramayana-related baul verses,Oriya renditions,Malayalam poems,wedding songs from Mithila to Pandit Bhimsen Joshi’s songs. “It has taken up a life of its own,” Sen concedes.

Anek Ramayan has been showcased in Delhi,Kolkata and some select American colleges so far. But for Sen and the team,the journey of acceptance was the biggest take away. “We have tried to depict things that are not apparent. We are not trying to make any comment either; it is about accepting that there are versions of the stories that are different from what we know,” says Sen.