The media, Bharatiya Janata Party media cell messages and sadhus are all furiously trying to establish (on the basis of several unreliable sources) that Lord Ram has finally returned to Ayodhya as a baby (Balak Ram) after a gap of five centuries.
Suddenly everything is in confusion.
Wasn’t Ram banished by his own father for 14 years to a forest when he was just a teenager? If so, how can he be said to have ‘returned’ as a baby? Both Valmiki’s Ramayana and Tulsidas’s Ram Charit Manas tell us Ram returned as an adult and ruled for long, leaving behind twin sons and timeless memories of his glorious rule: the Ram Rajya.
Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty
What about the strange discovery and relocation of Lord Ram first as Ram Lalla, and then as Balak Ram?
Stories of dreams regarding buried treasures and holy relics form a vast invisible network in India. In the case of Ram, these ancient tracks have gotten effortlessly linked with each other through folk songs, recitations and annual re-enactments of the epics about Ram. Everyone, from rural women pounding rice or grinding wheat to wandering bands of Sadhus and poets from non-Hindu sects, has sung the tale in various languages. One such Awadhi song runs:
“Ram suffered many misfortunes walking under the hot sun with his loyal but very young brother and a beautiful wife who had never been out in the sun. Ravana, who abducted her, was righly burnt to a crisp.”
(Ram per paral bipatiya bipatiya ho!
Lachhiman Larikva, na baate abodh,
Arey Sita aisi sundar rahilin ghamva maan batin
Ke jari gayo Ravanaa bedardiya, na baaanchyo…)
Idols of Ram, Sita and Lakshman are periodically discovered amid ruins, tanks or rivers even now. Most of them belong to the post 12th century when images of Hindu gods began being crafted for temples that sprouted up on both sides of the Vindhyas. According to Maajha Pravas, the travelogue by a Marathi pilgrim, Parashuram Baba the ancient priest of a temple of Kale Ram told him the three statues of Ram, Lakshmana and Janaki in the temple had appeared to his grandfather in a dream when visiting Ayodhya. He rescued them from the Sarayu river. This must be was around the 17th- 18th century. With the help of a generous Maratha chieftain, they were duly installed on the banks of the river Sarayu. Vishnu Bhatt also records paying an entrance fee of Re 1 and four annas in 1858, a large sum then.
Where is that temple, one wonders.
Then in post-independence India, an idol of Ram Lalla was again salvaged from Sarayu waters by a sadhu after he dreamt of it. Despite objections from the government, the idol was brought out and installed within a mosque as Ram Lalla. Long litigation followed and the statue was relocated to a makeshift but heavily protected tent.
Another long period of acrimony followed, until in 2019 the NDA government got a go-ahead signal from the courts.
Recent media images do not reflect the dreamlines and the litigation and the blood shed. On January 22 morning, all dailies flaunted large poster-size front-page ads. Hyperventilating headlines heralded the “arrival” of Ram in Ayodhya and Ram Rajya in India after 500 years. Large photos of leaders and priests with severe patriarchal faces graced the media and outdoor hoardings. Their raised hands signalled a war won, the controlled features showed neither anxiety nor defeat, but an unmistakable gleam of fervour and triumph in their eyes.
Hastily scrawled notes on index cards while watching the event on TV and fragments of Hindi dailies on my desk are chaotic.
“Tapsya, ascetic life for eleven days without eating grains and sleeping on the hard floor.”
Leadership says “chosen by god” for the grand task of bringing him home after 500 years.
“Jyotishis from Kashi crafted the time chart for the divine Abhijit Muhurtam.
“He crosses 32 steps and five Mandapams carrying silver articles on a red and gold folded cloth”, does Sashtang Pranamam after.
“In the womb room the leaders felt “Supernatural” “Divine”energies flowing into the body.
“Overcome by emotions. Have no word to describe.”
“Bollywood actor shouting Jai Shree Ram then looking to see if cameras had caught it, then again Jai Shree Ram!”
“Confirm with..evening bulletin later. Check X too.”
The pran pratishtha samaroh was more of a victory celebration, like a Rajasuya Yagna. The cameras showed a few solemnly performing the rigid rituals. Other invitees watched it on large screens outside. Security is tight. Several VIPs say they failed to get darshan.
Commoners had already been requested to stay away on January 22. Now Cabinet colleagues have also been politely asked to postpone their visits. Reason being crowds of common folks from all over are overwhelming the local administration. One learns from the media that to get a room to stay there until one can get a darshan is almost as hard as getting a spot in the corridor of a tiny hotel in some over crowded hill station in summer.
A mega star from Bollywood said to have bought land for a home in Ayodhya, is seen in a builder’s ad offering cottages with easy EMIs in Ayodhya. There are other unmistakable images of the boom of easy money and dazzling transactions in the town that has made it to the highest category in the religious tourism circuit. The local shopkeepers all dressed in shades of saffron and yellow are euphoric. Not just Lucknow but the newly built airport in Ayodhya, they tell the channels, has never before seen so many private jets carrying VIPs from all spheres: corporate, politics, cricket, Bollywood, event managers…
The camera crews then move on to the Republic Day parade and the honoured guest from France. Images of cordoned-off VIP areas packed with VIPs with grim faces wearing shades, curious wives eyeing each other slyly. The prime minister’s face above his carefully clipped beard looks pale and still. Once in a while he inclines his head slightly and raises his thick white eyebrows, otherwise not a muscle moves in the face. A man of immense, stubborn, unretreating, unhesitating, implacable will.
A garden of centrally approved patriotism blooms on the floats from states, on what was Raj Path (the king’s avenue) and is now Kartavya Path (Duty Avenue).
A nation long in bondage of colonial masters degraded as an object, seeks a self image, an identity of its own. Raj is out, Kartavya is in. Should we then expect on any Poornima or Ekadashi or Amavasya or Samkranti, a choreographed explosion of veneration for ‘our’ god, resonating in remote towns often in simultaneous acts of retaliation against selected religious symbols and monuments?
Bulldozers never had it so good. The cameramen have never used the long shot for rallies so often.
Lalan Piya (an 18th century singer poet)’s thumri in Raag Kafi comes to mind: “Look, there go Ram and his younger brother with the daughter of king Janak/With king Dashrath’s passing Awadh has lost its happy soul/ Men and women singed by fires of sorrow/Watch the queen mother Kaushalya weeping all by herself.”
Saakhi is a Sunday column from Mrinal Pande, in which she writes of what she sees and also participates in. That has been her burden to bear ever since she embarked on a life as a journalist, writer, editor, author and as chairperson of Prasar Bharti. Her journey of being a witness-participant continues.
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