Speaking tree again and Gud story abt hanumanji

The Ramayana is an epic story of love and loss. Its characters are, in some ways, heroic ideals but the story also tries to show us how we should re spond to crises that destabilise us and bring out the worst in us.

Even the evil characters in the Ramayana are touched by redemptive qualities. Even the good characters make mistakes sometimes tragic ones that bring heartbreaking consequences in their wake.

I first encountered the Ramayana in Sri Lanka 25 years ago, as the country tipped into war between Hindus and Buddhists. Then, as I travelled through India, Ii began to realise that the Ramayana played a central role in the lives of Hindus, and that its representation of the enemy, "the other", shaped the way conflicting groups on the Indian subcontinent saw each other and had done for a thousand years. A quarter-century on, I understood a new journey, in the footsteps of Rama, to try to understand the extraordinary enduring power of the epic. Today, as i write, a new TV adaptation of the Ramayana is captivating viewers and catapulting the channel broadcasting it to success in the ratings. Like that other Indian epic, the Mahabharata, the Ramayana cannot be viewed as some kind of literal history lesson. It does take us, however, into the heart and the soul of India, ancient and modern...

...The story came to Valmiki in a rush a great, mysterious, elegant, witty, erotic, ironic, spiritual adventure. All human life was there. The wanderings of Rama, he called it: Ramayana. In it, he would tell the true story of a man who became, in Valmiki's own lifetime, a great but tragic king, believed ultimately to have been a god. It all began with the story of Rama's father, king Dasharatha, a man whose own greatness was undermined by all too human weakness...

...My Ramayana differs from the original, but so do most of the versions that have travelled throughout Asia, becoming absorbed into the mythologies of many nations and even into another religion: Buddhism. According to Hindu tradition, Rama has incarnated thousands of times, and every incarnation has produced a new version...

...The Hindus i encountered enjoyed an effortless mastery of their mythology ^ an enthusiasm for it, too ^ learned at their grandmothers' knees. I had my copy of the Ramayana with me. The mere fact that i was struggling with their great, central myth, using it as a sort of primer to Hinduism and the larger culture, gave them an intense and touching pleasure. In truth, i was still only halfway through it, with its painful English translation, but i knew it held a key to Hinduism. It was clearly one of the world's great myths, a book entirely overlooked when i'd been taught about the Odyssey, the Iliad, Beowulf, the Arthurian legends. Yet this subtle and poetic story, produced by Indian civilisation when my ancestors were running around in rabbit skins, was infinitely more alive than any of them...

...There's a long tradition of asking, How many Ramayanas have there been? The answer is often given as a kind of metaphysical riddle, like this:

Rama drops his ring, which burns a hole in the ground and disappears. Faithful Hanuman, dispatched to bring it back, shrinks himself to the size of Rama's finger and disappears into the hole. In the underworld he finds the king of the spirits, sitting next to a platter piled high with rings ^ thousands of them all Rama's. "Pick your Rama's ring," says the king. Hanuman replies, "But I don't know which one it is." "Ah", says the king, "every incarnation of Rama loses his ring." Take one back but you won't find the Rama you knew. That incarnation has ended. Another is about to begin..."

...This codicil reinforces the concept of reincarnation and suggests that the flow of Ramayanas will never end. There's no ur-Ramayana, no correct version. I look into the Ramayana and draw out of it those elements that speak most strongly to me.

Excerpted from 'An Indian Odyssey'. Today is Valmiki Jayanti.