Here we have two Bollywood movies 'Rajneeti' and 'Raavan' drawing parallels from the greatest epics of all times Mahabharat and Ramayan respectively. Elaborate critiques on these epics have been written, discussed and debated by scholars since ages. However, presenting the same through popular cinema appeals to a much wider audience than any other medium.
While a realistic analysis and interpretation of Mahabharat has already been quite celebrated, almost as much as the epic itself, the facts in Ramayan and their interpretations still remain more or less sacrosanct. While we easily see the fine line of difference between the good and bad, the just and unjust getting diminished in the case of Mahabharat , it is not so with Ramayan, sometimes to an extent that it tends to ridicule our common sense.'Raavan' definitely is a feeble first in this respect.
When I first read Ramayan as a child, a few incidents seemed completely inconceivable. One of them was that of Lakshaman's encounter with Raavan's sister Shurpanakha. Shurpanakha expressed her desire for Ram and her feminine jealousy got fuelled by Sita's beauty and appearance, resulting in her turning violent. Apparently she was taught a lesson by Lakshaman who cut her nose off as a punishment. Now, think for a moment what actually would have happened. An educated, well bred warrior is unlikely to commit an act as crude as cutting off a woman's nose. Besides this cut would have resulted in heavy bleeding that would have been lethal. However, we know that she survived the 'atrocity' committed on her and travelled all the way down south to her brother Raavan, thereby making him seek vengeance. Hence, cutting of nose might just have been symbolic. What is worth pondering is that if Shurpanakha's molestation is justifiable by any means , why does Sita's abduction make Raavan an eternal villain? Can he not be judged by the standards of an average human considering that he merely sought to avenge his sister's humiliation, considering that he acted in a much more dignified manner by requesting Sita to marry him, instead of forcing himself on her, while she was at his mercy, considering that the hero of the epic fails to demonstrate such substance when he asks his wife to prove her chastity instead of soothing her pain?
