FICTION
Compelling tale
R. KRITHIKA
|
An impressive retelling of the epic, so different from the story we've often heard.
|
Bridge of Rama, Ashok Banker, Penguin, Rs. 350.
ASHOK BANKER'S Ramayana series is an impressive retelling of the ancient epic with a generous dose of fantasy thrown in. Bridge of Rama, the fifth of the series, follows the earlier books in weaving together different elements to tell a compelling tale.
The fifth book focuses on Sita's imprisonment in Lanka and Rama's struggle to reach Lanka. But Banker's story is different from the epic we know so well.
Not the traditional tale
Sita, not in the traditional Ashoka vana, is ill treated by Mandodhari's sakhis. Charged with the murder of a blind rakshasi, she is condemned to death. Warned by his father's spirit, Rama asks Hanuman to bring Sita back from Lanka — a deviation that will have the purists baying for blood. Jambavan, the king of bears, is instrumental in unleashing Hanuman's powers so that the mighty vanar can accomplish that task. In the meantime, the vanars and the bears continue to build the bridge across the ocean. Hanuman reaches Lanka on the day of Sita's execution and pleads with her to return with him. But Sita refuses. She insists that she will not return unless Rama rescues her and redeems his honour.
Hanuman's encounters with Mainaka, the mountain and Sarasa, the gaint sea serpent, follow the traditional stories with only slight embellishments. But in Lanka, Banker transforms the story of the encounter with the spirit of Lanka into a trap. Surpanakha, Ravana's cousin who lusts after Rama, normally disappears halfway through the epic. Here, she plays a crucial role — from reviving Ravan from coma to helping him bring Rama to Lanka. In her obsession with Rama, she is willing to sacrifice her race. As Hanuman tells her, "In your own way, you are as besotted with my lord as I am."
Mandodhari, Ravana's wife who normally has a blink-and-you-miss-her role in the epic is also a character of great strength. In the years of Ravana's coma, she is responsible for rebuilding Lanka. Banker's Mandodhari is jealous of Sita and is keen to see her dead.
But of all the Rakshasa characters, it is Ravana who holds the readers' attention. So far, Banker's Ravana seemed like a stop-at-nothing man.
But in Bridge of Rama, he is a subtle strategist, manoeuvring his people to some purpose of his own. In Ravana's version of the Ramayana, as told to Mandodhari and his generals, Rama is the villain planning to conquer Lanka.
The other side
For once the story is told from the other side. And Hanuman, when dragged into court in chains, has a sudden flash of insight. "He (Ravana) is beautiful. If only he was righteous. ... if he had not done what he had done, had not the nature that he did possess, then he would not be Ravana at all. Then he would be ... Rama. Or something close to Rama. A virtuous warrior beyond compare."
Sita, dragged into Ravana's durbar, has a sudden sense of déjà vu. Why does she think she is back in Ayodhya? Does Ravana want ot be like Rama? Is that desire behind his actions?
The building of the bridge also gets its due share of attention — how the site for the bridge is selected, the trouble with moving huge boulders, the numbers who die in the attempt and finally engineer Nala's great plan, which nobody understands because it is explained in a welter of incomprehensible numbers. "Rama wondered if all creatures with extraordinary mental gifts were similarly challenged when it came to expressing the fruits of those mental talents."
With one more book to go to finish the series, I remember a friend's opinion of Banker's series, "I think this is how it must have been but it got sanitised along the way."
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Literary Review
