Rama and his story have been hovering around in my head these days because that's been the story that I tell Ani during dinner time.
So, sometimes I think I should narrate the Ramayana to Ani the way I heard it: as though Rama's actions and thoughts cannot be questioned. Yet, the texts that form the basis of all Hindu philosophy, the Upanishads, are anything but reverential towards any deity. They are factual, logical and make conclusions based on evidence, all the while acknowledging that there is something greater and more mysterious than what we can ever comprehend.
When I recall that, I don't feel too compelled to tell my son Ani about Rama the way I heard it as a child: as though he were a deity and whatever the only way to think about his story is the way the Ramayana proclaims it. Because once he grows up and starts thinking about it independently, of what the story has to teach, he'll find that there are all sorts of moral dilemmas cropping up. To think of Ramayana in a literal, "he is the God and we have to blindly accept his story" way would not only vastly underestimate it, but also lead to all sorts of dangerous thinking.
Yesterday night, we paused at Vali's killing. For those not in the know, here's a brief precis: Rama's wife Sita has been kidnapped. He and his brother Lakshmana are looking for her. They come across Sugriva in the jungle on their travels, who promises to help them, in turn for Rama helping him become the king of Kishkinda. The current king of Kishkinda is Sugriva's brother Vali. Rama agrees; Sugriva challenges Vali to a fight; Rama hides in the bushes, and while Vali is thus engaged in fighting Sugriva, kills him with an arrow to his back.
Vali, while dying, cries out in anguish at the unfairness of these tactics. "If you had come to me for help in seeking your wife, Rama", says he, "I would have instantly helped you, with no conditions. You are supposed to be a king among men, the most perfect of all, and yet you fought me in an underhanded and devious way and killed me with a blow to my back when I was not expecting it".
And then Rama replies with something like, "I asked Sugriva for his help first and he offered it immediately. And this was the price of his offer. I could not, in any conscience, reject it. This is the price you have to pay, Vali, for having banished Sugriva from your kingdom*"
* Long story short: Sugriva thinks Vali is dead after he goes to fight some bad guys. He goes back to Kishkinda, crowns himself king, marries Vali's widow and adopts his son as his own. Vali comes back, enraged to find Sugriva has taken over just about everything that should belong to him, defeats Sugriva in a fight and banishes him.
Hmm.. is it just me, or does anyone else find Rama's reply rather unconvincing? I can't help feeling that Vali is quite justified in his laments.
In Nabokov's Lolita, the writing is sly, insidious. You keep reading it, and you're completely sympathizing with the narrator and you feel, yeah, it's totally okay for him to be lusting after a child. It's not until you put the book down and escape Nabokov's web of words that you suddenly realize that the writer has made you complicit, that he has tricked you into completely agreeing with something terrible.
Sometimes I think Ramayana is like that. You go through a few hundred pages of Rama's greatness, his nobility yada yada yada (by the way, is his nobility ever shown in any real instance? Or is just always averred to be true, but with no proof? Sure he's supposed to be a great looking guy- with extraordinarily long hands "that come up to his knees", and he's real handy (haha) with a bow and arrow, and he's a dutiful son, but what else? How is he noble?), then you come across these sudden instances which strike a totally jarring note.
Now, if Rama had said, "Yes Vali. Shit man, you're right. What I did was totally not right, but I'm desperate. I need help, and Sugriva was the first to offer it and I grabbed hold of it as quickly as I could. I'm really sorry", now that makes sense. And in fact, it makes him more real and human. It also shows that Rama is aware of his faults. Reading something like this makes someone who worships Rama think about the times when they do something that isn't quite right and that doesn't sit well with the conscience.
But by getting off on to a high horse, "Well Vali, all that has happened to you is really your fault. If you had only been a better brother....", Rama shows himself to be not so perfect after all. Kind of petty, really. And, in fact, deaf to conscience.
So, how best to put all this forth to an enraptured 4 year old? I toyed briefly with the idea of making Rama confess that he hadn't been all that great after all, by molding Rama into some image that I would like him to be. But ultimately, I went with the truth...the Ramayana version, that is. But I added a couple of "Hmm.. so do you think that was particularly right of Rama to do, Ani? Killing someone who wasn't expecting to be hit in the back with an arrow like that?" Ani obediently shook his head, but was that because he truly felt it was wrong, but because I clearly expected it of him? Who knows?
Couple of moral dilemmas coming up in the Ramayana, and I need to think about how to put it forth to Ani. One is Vibhishana's defection from Ravana's side to Rama's and the other, of course, is the biggie: the supposed banishment of Sita by Rama after he rescues her. "Supposed" because it's not actually part of the original Ramayana, but is thought to have been tacked on to the epic at a later stage. Oh, and a third one: Sita's trial of fire after her rescue to prove to the world that she is still indeed "pure".
Poor Sita. Can't catch a break: kidnapped first, then refuses all of Ravana's enticements and never sits foot into his house, lives outside under a tree for all those months, refuses Hanuman's aid to get rescued and instead waits for Rama to avenge her kidnapping, and THEN, despite all the evidence (Hanuman, all of her guards, practically every citizen of Lanka) showing that she never shared Ravana's bed, she still had to put up with all sorts of humiliations and nonsensical tests to prove her purity. Jeez.
