The Khuti area of Ranchi has been tense after a catholic-run school displayed Lord Ram in jeans and Sita in salwar kameez while enacting a play.But, is that the full story or is there something else much more serious and offensive than just jeans and salwar kameez?
Rama was reportedly presented as a drunkard and as the villain of ‘Ramayana’, with Ravana shown abusing and beating him with slippers. The audience of the play point out that it seemed the play was meant to lower the dignity of the Hindu god, which irked the few students and teachers of the schools.Aha! That was it - see, once you read the stuff quoted above, you don’t need to be a fundamentalist Hindu to be angry with a missionary-run school going out of its way to distort and degrade the Hindu mythology.
So why does SIFY lead with a misleading title and opening paragraph?
Posted by shanti at August 6, 2003 11:26 AMTrackBack URL for this entry:
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Hindus are not minorities… that’s probably why!
… the worst part is… “broad-minded” that they are, some Hindus don’t see anything wrong in this kind “modern interpretation” of Hindu mythology. :angry:
Posted by: Sameer at August 7, 2003 12:11 AM
And to think that nobody objected to Ramanand Sagar’s hideous papier-mache/men-in-rouge/special-effects-budget=25paisa rendition of the ramayan on TV.
(remember those arrows clashing in mid-air, and one of them…hold your breathe…disapppears….)
Man, they even showed it here in Kenya for a while with english subtitles. Luckily, good sense prevailed and they yanked it off the air before I could gouge out my eyeballs in distress…
—Ashok
Posted by: Ashok at August 7, 2003 3:10 AM
Of course, Sameer - Hinduism is the only thing that is peecee to make fun of in present-day India.
Ashok, I agree that Ramanand Sagar’s special effects weren’t that great, but it was atleast a sincere effort to portray something that he believed in - not an attempt at a cheap shot, that too by making little kids the pawns in a school setting.
Posted by: Shanti at August 7, 2003 7:03 AM
Anyone heard of the Raavana Kaavyam? It’s a Tamil work, in which Ravana is the misunderstood tragic hero and Rama is a uncaring jock villain. Seetha is Ravana’s long lost daughter, brought up by Dasaratha (remember, he claims to have dug her up) and given away to Rama against her wishes. Raavana is finally broken after his son is killed by deceit and dies tragically.
Anyway, I personally don’t care much for desecration of religious figures. One person’s god is another’s demon. My only problem (and I think yours is too) with minority hypocrisy. Christians or Muslims ought to take it a little easy when it comes to their own faiths. If you dish it out, you should be able to take it too.
Posted by: Kingsley at August 11, 2003 11:22 AM
Exactly, Kingsley - it is the double standards I am against, not making fun of stuff. Even in some Telugu movies, we have these accent-ridden narrations and modernizations of the epics, that the whole audience just laughs about.
Yeah, things are changed around and everybody actually finds it funny - I think it is the spirit of things that make some things offensive.
Posted by: Shanti at August 11, 2003 11:56 AM