Men with the flying chariots take a road journey in Punjab
Hanumanji with the red socks. A scene from the Kotdwar Malviya Udhyan Ramlila
In the small hill town of Kotdwar in Pauri Garhwal (that you probably know well by now - since you’ve been inflicted upon with my blogs for a while) this is the fortnight of the cross-dressers. In these lazy hills, known for their lazy men and hard-working women with alabaster complexions and frown-lined foreheads (you can well understand why), now is the time when the bhullus and the bhaijis (younger and elder brothers) stub out their bidi butts, pull up their red woolen mojaas and with a robust Bol Siyapati Ram Chandra ki Jai get down to performing the Pahadi Ramlila.
Over the years, men have been playing female characters in this grand epic that spoilsport Vedic researchers now claim is complete fiction. Come October, and almost divinely-inspired, they raise their deep baritones to high tenors; and with delicious flutters of kajal-laced eyelashes and tantalizing turns of shaved waists, they don the long-haired wigs and err.. fake bosoms and get down to playing every female character in the Ramlila – from simpering Sita to crafty Kaikaye to Manthara to Mandodari. To the beats of the dholak and the strains of the harmonium; reciting poetry that cannot find a match anywhere else in the world (Hey Ram tumhare kehne se, ek jhagda mol liya maine), they flaunt their sequined saris and red-lipsticked mouths, dab generous circles of rouge on bristly powdered cheeks and step into the skirts of some of the most famous female characters in Hindu mythology.
Far away from the big cities with their multi-entertainment options, our small towns find their own kind of fun. The Ramlila, with its numerous attractions – from family values to human failing, from love to lust, from jealousy to devotion, from cowardice to courage and last but certainly not the least, the dark repercussions of fooling around with another man’s wife – covers a gamut of human behaviour that no Bollywood potboiler or television soap can ever hope to match. No wonder then that all considerations of caste and class are forgotten in otherwise orthodox Kotdwar where Thokdaar saab doesn’t mix around with lesser mortals and takes it as a personal insult if people have not bowed their heads the mandatory 15 degrees and folded their hands to say Namashkaar. Post-dinner, almost everybody trudges faithfully down to the Ramlila maidan where hot roasted peanuts sell from shaky old carts and monkey-capped vendors deal out hot steaming cups of chai in ribbed glasses and gur ki gajak on a snipped off piece of yesterday’s newspaper. Thokdaar saab, Brigadier saab, DIG saab and others sahabs in the privileged class get plastic chairs to sit on while the rest of us bring our own mats and durries from home or squat on the grass or the crumbing stone wall under the twinkling stars, companionably sharing gossip and chanas.
When the love-struck Suparnakha quirks her eyebrow and swings her hips to entice Ram and/or Lakshman (often to the tunes of the latest Bollywood numbers – from Sexy, sexy sexy mujhe log bolen once upon a time to Main hun Jalebi Bai, sab puchte hain mujhse tu kaun des see aayi – with the crowds dutifully roaring Lanka) she is the ultimate item girl with a bust size, sex appeal and an attitude that can put Mallika Sherawat to shame. So what, if behind the stuffed and firmly secured brassier she is actually a he. The whistles and cat calls from the high testosterone Romeos sitting in the anonymity of darkness are enough to make the devout old ladies bristle and the rest of us giggle in delight. Besides the actual tale with its numerous teachings - the most important being "victory of good over evil" that US presidents battling self-created demons are touting only now, the Ramlila experience holds out a few lessons of its own. That gods we worship in Hinduism, a staggering 330 million in all, might never have existed but they represent individual human qualities that society has always aspired to have - like courage and devotion (Laxman), family values (Ram), devotion and morality (Sita), fearlessness (Durga) and so on and so forth.
The other interesting observation, that new age film directors are homing on only now, is that grey shades in a character make it more interesting. So while old ladies with covered heads dutifully drop coins into the arati thali with a fluttering flamed diya that is passed around every hour and little kids with naughty eyes keep a sly lookout for loose coins that can be picked up from the thali if no one’s watching), the biggest attraction of the dance drama is another man. The undisputed crowd-puller is the larger-than-life, dark-eyed, magnetic bad boy of the Ramayana – Lankapati Ravana of the swaggering walk, the wide chest, the reckless attitude and the booming reverberating voice. The flashing evil in his eyes when he spots the lovely Sita, his sheer audacity when he decides to pick her up, just like that, and his relentless pursuit to win her affections, are a class apart. It’s something that no modern villain can hold a candle to. When the towering Ravana makes a grand, glamorous entry on the day of Sita haran with his swishing yellow satin dhoti and flashing black eyes, the crowds swoon and sigh. They hold on to their breaths and that scalding-hot chai ki pyali as his evil unfolds and though every kid knows how it will all end, every generation watches with bated breath and continues to flock to the Ramlila maidan for Ravan’s debut appearance year after year. The entertainment goes on. And it will go on till the day those multiplex movie halls and mega malls eyeing the rural market leave it alone. I just wish they would pass us by because we are having more fun watching the cross-dressers under the open skies than they can ever hope to match.
Mojaas: socks; bol Siyapati Ranchandra ki jai: all hail Sita's husband Ram; Hey Ram tumhare kehne se, ek jhagda mol liya maine: Hey Ram, I took on this fight because you told me to; Namashkaar: Namaste; maidan: ground; Sexy mujhe log bolen: people call me sexy; main hun Jalebi Bai, sab puchte hain mujhse tu kaun des se aayi: folks call me Jalebi Bai and ask me which country I come from; chai ki pyali: cup of tea)
Over the years, men have been playing female characters in this grand epic that spoilsport Vedic researchers now claim is complete fiction. Come October, and almost divinely-inspired, they raise their deep baritones to high tenors; and with delicious flutters of kajal-laced eyelashes and tantalizing turns of shaved waists, they don the long-haired wigs and err.. fake bosoms and get down to playing every female character in the Ramlila – from simpering Sita to crafty Kaikaye to Manthara to Mandodari. To the beats of the dholak and the strains of the harmonium; reciting poetry that cannot find a match anywhere else in the world (Hey Ram tumhare kehne se, ek jhagda mol liya maine), they flaunt their sequined saris and red-lipsticked mouths, dab generous circles of rouge on bristly powdered cheeks and step into the skirts of some of the most famous female characters in Hindu mythology.
Far away from the big cities with their multi-entertainment options, our small towns find their own kind of fun. The Ramlila, with its numerous attractions – from family values to human failing, from love to lust, from jealousy to devotion, from cowardice to courage and last but certainly not the least, the dark repercussions of fooling around with another man’s wife – covers a gamut of human behaviour that no Bollywood potboiler or television soap can ever hope to match. No wonder then that all considerations of caste and class are forgotten in otherwise orthodox Kotdwar where Thokdaar saab doesn’t mix around with lesser mortals and takes it as a personal insult if people have not bowed their heads the mandatory 15 degrees and folded their hands to say Namashkaar. Post-dinner, almost everybody trudges faithfully down to the Ramlila maidan where hot roasted peanuts sell from shaky old carts and monkey-capped vendors deal out hot steaming cups of chai in ribbed glasses and gur ki gajak on a snipped off piece of yesterday’s newspaper. Thokdaar saab, Brigadier saab, DIG saab and others sahabs in the privileged class get plastic chairs to sit on while the rest of us bring our own mats and durries from home or squat on the grass or the crumbing stone wall under the twinkling stars, companionably sharing gossip and chanas.
When the love-struck Suparnakha quirks her eyebrow and swings her hips to entice Ram and/or Lakshman (often to the tunes of the latest Bollywood numbers – from Sexy, sexy sexy mujhe log bolen once upon a time to Main hun Jalebi Bai, sab puchte hain mujhse tu kaun des see aayi – with the crowds dutifully roaring Lanka) she is the ultimate item girl with a bust size, sex appeal and an attitude that can put Mallika Sherawat to shame. So what, if behind the stuffed and firmly secured brassier she is actually a he. The whistles and cat calls from the high testosterone Romeos sitting in the anonymity of darkness are enough to make the devout old ladies bristle and the rest of us giggle in delight. Besides the actual tale with its numerous teachings - the most important being "victory of good over evil" that US presidents battling self-created demons are touting only now, the Ramlila experience holds out a few lessons of its own. That gods we worship in Hinduism, a staggering 330 million in all, might never have existed but they represent individual human qualities that society has always aspired to have - like courage and devotion (Laxman), family values (Ram), devotion and morality (Sita), fearlessness (Durga) and so on and so forth.
The other interesting observation, that new age film directors are homing on only now, is that grey shades in a character make it more interesting. So while old ladies with covered heads dutifully drop coins into the arati thali with a fluttering flamed diya that is passed around every hour and little kids with naughty eyes keep a sly lookout for loose coins that can be picked up from the thali if no one’s watching), the biggest attraction of the dance drama is another man. The undisputed crowd-puller is the larger-than-life, dark-eyed, magnetic bad boy of the Ramayana – Lankapati Ravana of the swaggering walk, the wide chest, the reckless attitude and the booming reverberating voice. The flashing evil in his eyes when he spots the lovely Sita, his sheer audacity when he decides to pick her up, just like that, and his relentless pursuit to win her affections, are a class apart. It’s something that no modern villain can hold a candle to. When the towering Ravana makes a grand, glamorous entry on the day of Sita haran with his swishing yellow satin dhoti and flashing black eyes, the crowds swoon and sigh. They hold on to their breaths and that scalding-hot chai ki pyali as his evil unfolds and though every kid knows how it will all end, every generation watches with bated breath and continues to flock to the Ramlila maidan for Ravan’s debut appearance year after year. The entertainment goes on. And it will go on till the day those multiplex movie halls and mega malls eyeing the rural market leave it alone. I just wish they would pass us by because we are having more fun watching the cross-dressers under the open skies than they can ever hope to match.
Mojaas: socks; bol Siyapati Ranchandra ki jai: all hail Sita's husband Ram; Hey Ram tumhare kehne se, ek jhagda mol liya maine: Hey Ram, I took on this fight because you told me to; Namashkaar: Namaste; maidan: ground; Sexy mujhe log bolen: people call me sexy; main hun Jalebi Bai, sab puchte hain mujhse tu kaun des se aayi: folks call me Jalebi Bai and ask me which country I come from; chai ki pyali: cup of tea)
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