Skip to main content

Ravana



Fiction

Anand Shankar was trolled mercilessly in social media when he posted his story ‘Ravana’ in his blog.  He was a little known blogger and hence the tremendous attention that his present story drew came as a rude shock as well as pleasant surprise at once.

His story ended with Sita longing to return to Lanka because Rama suspected her chastity.  No, she didn’t return.  In fact, she didn’t even want to return.  A painful conflict arose in her consciousness.  This man, Rama, the Maryada Purushottam, the hero of a whole country, god incarnate, this man faltered when some silly gossip monger raised a question about my chastity, Sita reflects at the end of Anand’s tale.  Ravana emerges as a far better hero in her consciousness.  Ravana who stood before her in Ashok Vatika with love and admiration in his eyes.  And reverence that did not at all match his royal narcissism.  When he knew that his love for her could never surpass her love for Rama, he surrendered himself in devotion to Rama and begged to be killed by none other than his rival.  Ravana sacrificed himself for me while my husband is seeking to sacrifice me for his honour, Sita sat pondering at the end of Anand Shankar’s story.

Trolls marched in hoards accusing Anand Shankar of blasphemy, irreligion, demon worship, secessionism, anti-nationalism, and all sorts of things.  The euphoria over the attention his blog received soon gave way to jitteriness.  Anand wondered what his crime really was.  He contemplated for days and days.

Ravana’s ten heads appeared to him with various colours and expressions.  Anand saw his own blasphemy, irreligion, and other evils on those faces.  But very often he saw his trolls, the numerous nationalist organisations and their fanatic supporters, on Ravana’s faces.  Anand was confused.  Who is the real Ravana? 

Sita will be sacrificed again and again until the real Ravana is discovered, Anand Shankar began his next blog post.




Comments

  1. Why do people react so mercilessly to imagination while they have nothing to do when 'seasoned' rapists go scotfree on grounds of minority.
    There have been many books which found mythology in different light Like Anand Neelakantan's books which were bestsellers. Then why this pseudo tears now? Is there more to it than we see on the periphery

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm afraid there is more, Rakhi. There's a whole gang of paid trolls who work for a particular political party whose goal is to eliminate those who question the party's goals and objectives.

      Delete
    2. Horrible. Can't explain this in better words

      Delete
  2. Different viewpoints have become very difficult in the present times. Sad...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sad indeed. This zeal for suppressing dissent and diversity is taking the nation back by centuries.

      Delete
  3. Thanks for sharing this. I was expecting a link to Anand's said post. As these days I'm writing on slut-shaming, I see Sita's case as a victim of slut-shaming who committed suicide later.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Didn't you see the first line: 'fiction'? 😑 Well, the reality is even more sinister.

      Delete
  4. Hmm...a case study of Ravana, Sita and Shankara...oh I am heavily influenced by Dan Brown to see this initials everywhere nowadays.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Even before Brown, a Malayalam novelist M T Vasudevan Nair rewrote the Mahabharata from the perspective of Bheema. It's good to see the other side too 😑

      Delete
  5. Exactly. I have always felt M.T wrote the first mythological fiction in India. Anyways, waiting to see Randamoozham on screen

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Prelude to AtoZ

  From Garden of 5 Senses, Delhi [file pic] Hindsight gives an unearthly charm and order to the past. There can be pain too. A lot of things could have been different, much better, if only we possessed the wisdom of our old age back in those days. As a writer put it, Oedipus, Hamlet, Lear and a lot of those guys must have thought, “I wish I had known this some time ago.” Life is a series of errors with intermittent achievements. The only usefulness of the errors may be the lessons they teach us. Probably, that is their purpose too. We are created to err so that we learn, I dare to put it that way. I turn 64 in a month’s time. It’s not inappropriate to look back at some of the people whom life brought into my life so that I would learn certain lessons. No, I don’t mean to say that life has any such purpose or design or anything. Life is absurd. People come into your life as haphazardly as vehicles ply on your road or birds poop on your head. Some of these people change the chemist

Why I won’t vote

From Deshabhimani , Malayalam weekly Exactly a month from today is the Parliamentary election in my state of Kerala. This time, I’m not going to vote. Bernard Shaw defined democracy , with his characteristic cynicism, as “ a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve .” We elect our government in a democracy. And the government invariably sucks our blood – whichever the party is. The BJP and the Congress are like Tweedledum and Tweedledee though the former makes all sorts of other claims day in and day out. BJP = Congress + the holy cow. The holy cow has turned out to be quite a vampire and that makes a difference, no doubt. In our Prime Minister’s algebra, it is: (a+b) 2 which should be equal to a 2 and b 2 . There is an extra 2ab which is the holy cow. In George Orwell’s Animal Farm , the animals revolt against the human master and set up their own nationalist republic. Soon politics develops in the republic and some pigs become leaders. The porcine

How Arvind Kejriwal can save himself

Narendra Modi and Amit Shah have a clear vision. Eliminate all opposition. Decimate them or absorb them. My previous post [link below] showed a few people decimated by them. Today let’s look at the others: those who are saved by joining the Bharatiya Janata Party [BJP]. 1. Himanta Biswa Sarma  This guy was in Congress and faced serious charges related to the multi-crore Saradha chit fund scam. He also faced corruption charges related to drinking water supply in Guwahati. His house was raided by the Central Bureau of Investigation [CBI]. Then he switched over to BJP and all his crimes just vanished. It’s as simple as taking a dip in the Ganga and all your sins are forgiven. Today he is the chief minister of Assam. Nothing is heard of all the charges that were levelled against him. 2. Amarinder Singh  This former Captain in the Indian Army was a Congressman until Modi’s Enforcement Directorate [ED] started raiding him, his son and his son-in-law. He put an end to all those raid

The Good Old World

Book Review Title: Dukhi Dadiba and irony of fate Author: Dadi Edulji Taraporewala Translators: Aban Mukherji and Tulsi Vatsal Publisher: Ratna Books, Delhi, 2023 Pages: 314 If you want to return to the good old days of the late 19 th century, this is an ideal novel for you. This was published originally in Gujarati in 1913. It appeared as a serial before that from 1898 onwards in a periodical. The conflict between good and evil is the dominant motif though there is romance, betrayal, disappointment, regret, and pretty much of traditional morality. Reading this novel is quite like watching an old Bollywood movie, 1960s style. Ardeshir Bahadurshah, a wealthy Parsi aristocrat in Surat, dies having obligated his son Jehangir to find out his long-lost brother Rustom. Rustom was Bahadurshah’s son in his first marriage. The mother died when the boy was too small and the nurse who looked after the child vanished with it one day. Ratanmai, Bahadurshah’s present wife, takes her

Kejriwal’s Arrest in Modi’s Kurukshetra

For some mysterious reason, Arvind Kejriwal’s arrest reminded me of Haren Pandya. Maybe, because Pandya’s 21 st death anniversary is approaching (26 March). Have you forgotten Haren Pandya? He was the Home Minister of Gujarat before Narendra Modi assumed dictatorial powers in that state. Modi chose to teach humility to Pandya by making him the Minister of State for revenue. Pandya chose not to learn humility from Modi and resigned from that post in Aug 2002. Remember Gujarat of 2002? You should. A fire engulfed a train on 27 Feb 2002 killing 58 Hindu pilgrims who were returning from Ayodhya where they had gone to discover their god, not very unlike Christopher Columbus undertaking a voyage to discover India and messing it all up. What caused the fire in the train? Lord Ram knows probably. The upshot was that there was a riot in Gujarat by Hindus against Muslims. Haren Pandya is one of the BJP leaders who gave statements in many places indicting Modi for the riots. He asser