Commentator's Choice

Ok people,

I haven't watched today's episode yet, but this is about yesterday's temple scene. In spite of all our fulminations I have to confess to being an idiot romantic and really getting a rush from those moments. When I try to analyze my response, the music - as those wily music directors know perfectly well - plays a crucial part. The beauty of the Sanskrit lyrics is overwhelming, as is the sweet familiarity of the Marathi text. So here's me, trying to forget all this engagement nonsense, and looking at the scene again from Manav's perspective:

He wiped the grease off his hands, impatient to get home where he knew she was always just a few feet away, yet unwilling to face his mother's harangue again. What he had done at the temple had come as no surprise to him. He was angry with himself and everyone else for being made to go through the sindoor ritual with Shravani. It had felt wrong and unnatural and completely forced. Shravani was not the partner of his heart nor ever would be. He was intensely aware of Archana's heartbroken expression that day, and the droop of her shoulders at his mother's exultance. The priest, after all, had merely made a suggestion, one he could easily have ignored. But looking beyond the priest at the image of the god he had worshipped ever since he could think, the lines of the madhyanya aarti ran through his head, familiar in their richness: ghalin lotangan vandin charan/ dolyaneepahin rup tujhe/ preme alingin anande pujin/ bhave ovalin mhane nama…..karomi yadhat sakala parasmai/ narayana yeti samarpayami I will bow low to you and adore your feet, my seeking eyes will find at last the vision of your grace. I will hold you close to myself, and take your name endlessly, to you I surrender myself, God of all living beings. Surely that God, to whom he had prayed every day of his thinking life, had planned good things for him? What WAS that God's grace, if not the finding and cherishing of true love, such a love as this woman had given him? Everything in him rebelled against the life that lay before him without Archana, a life shorn of meaning and truth and beauty. Surely Bappa meant for them to come together again? Samarpayami…. I surrender myself to your will. Why else would the mangalsutra have returned so magically, why else would the two of them be standing there in His presence, with the priest's thaal outstretched, the little heap of sindoor glowing on it, and growing between them the sureness of their mutual love and need. He put his hand out and took a pinch of sindoor. He felt her surprise and looked down into her startled eyes. They stood there for several moments, dazed by the intensity of it all. Then he raised his hand to her forehead and there it was again, his sindoor where it should always have been, making more beautiful the only woman he had ever loved.

OK, back to reality, there are two other religious lyrics referenced:

a) the Ram-Ram-Raja-Ram Hindi chant is meant for North Indian viewers (since Maharashtrians, though they worship Ram too, do so in a milder form, and don't regard him in quite the same way as do North Indians) and a reference to Manav's fidelity to his wife, so (while I'm emphatically NOT a fan of the way Ram treated Sita) in this case we should be hopeful that Archana won't be exiled, but that instead, Manav, like Ram, will be steadfast in his refusal to commit his real self and in particular his heart and body, to another woman, even if he has to be formally engaged, even married elsewhere.

b) The last text is the tadeva lagnam sankalp part of the traditional puja; the worshipper later announces intent to pray and make offerings on this, an auspicious day:

tadeva lagnam sudinam tadeva/ tarabalam candrabalam tadeva/ vidyabalam daivabalam tadeva/ lakshmipateranghriyugam smarami.

This translates roughly as: "'I meditate on the two lotus feet of the Lord of Lakshmi (i.e. Narayan or Vishnu) because they alone represent the most auspicious time, they alone make a day a good day, they alone are the beneficial strength of all stars combined, they alone are the strength of the moon, they alone are the strength of all education, and they alone are the strength of all devas combined'

Here, the auspicious time is emphasized, when man and wife renew their vows through the sindoor ritual, once partially violated by Sulochana's act at the wedding, and endangered by the acts of both partners, but now attested to once more.

There's a reason why I'm quoting all these texts: the creatives want us to understand that this is the divinely ordained truth to the Manav Archana relationship. How the couple will negotiate this truth in their trying circumstances of course, is the question that the creatives have been progressively getting more and more tied up in knots over. But this scene is not just a part of their usual TRP bungling; if it did get high TRPs because it was also written with specific intent, as everyday television art, it works.

Yes Piya, the music/ chanting is there for heightened drama, and yes, the creatives DO think about all this. But not with a great deal of rigour, I suspect. There are some fairly standard extracts from everyday and familiar texts, things the average viewer will recognize and respond to, that get regularly trotted out. Yesterday's epsisode was particularly interesting to read from this perspective because Balaji is aiming for the attention of a pan-Indian audience with the story of a Marathi couple. So a little bit of Marathi aarti for amche Mumbaikars and Punekars, and a little bit of Jai Sri Ram sentiment for the Hindi belt, and above it all, the unifying ancient Sanskrit cadences: one big happy and determinedly Hindu family, you see. 😊

Beautiful as usual of course . But I would like u to explain Maharashtrians worshipping the milder form of Ram staement for the sake of increasing my own knowledge please . Are there two forms , and if so , which is worshipped by the North Indians . I repeat , This I want , for my knowledge alone.

@Kool: not a milder version of Ram, because the story after all, comes from Valmiki via Tulsidas to all Hindus. The fact that it comes through Tulsi is important, because Ram's stature in Hindi religious literature is much the stronger for Tulsi's intervention. What I meant was a milder way of worshipping him in the sense that he is respected and revered by Maharshtrians, but not as their primary deity. Ganpati is very much that primary deity, and then there's Mahadev for those who prefer him, and Krishna and Vithoba and Satyanarayan and even Balaji/Venkateshwara for the Vaishnavs (but not really Ram), and Lakshmi and Santoshi Ma and Durga/Gauri/Amba, though all these aren't necessarily in that order of priority. (I'm not fully Maharshtrian btw, but this is more or less what I've seen.)

@ Samarth: what disdain?

@ Piya again: you commented on the class aspect of PR but there's an unnecessarily insular Maharashtrian and Hindu aspect too. There isn't a single non-Maharashtrian, non-Brahmin, or non-Hindu in the entire set of characters. Even the girls' friends are Marathi, and so, by implication, is Tarun (?) and of course nobody ever thinks of marrying outside caste or community. And the final decisions about their own lives and actions aren't taken by ordinary people but by Bappa speaking through his bossy priests. Scary, if you think about it.

In Maharashtrian houses , twillight is the time Ram's name ........the Ram naam is taken and echoes in every house , A very powerful stotra called the RAmRaksha is said , in clear tones , taking care the pronounciations r uttered correctly . Mharshtrians believe that Rams name taken at dusk does not allow evil to enter the house , body , spirit . Marathi people offer dry ginger pweder and sugar mixed with it to RAm ......called the sunthavada , it is specially called Ram's offering . Ramnavmi is celebrated with immense gusto by Maharashtrians who rock the cradle of baby ram at 12 in the afternoon [ Krishna was born at 12 midnight ] and this prasad is eaten with reverence .

I grew up listening to the Ramraksha at twillight . It is a big stotra but comes effortlessly to Marathi kids as they hear it being chanted every evening . Marathis believe if any kind of fear is there , Rams name alleviates it . I dont know what and why this is . Even if the family deity is Vithoba , or Shiva or Amba , if fear factor comes in , The Marathi people chant Rams name . They say the mantra ........RA and MA Ram .......engineered and invented by our great self realized ancestors who were obviously having doctorates in the science of acoustics in that time and era , dispels the emotion FEAR . This fear can be of an animal , evil spirit , psychological , whatever . Fear runs away with Rams name and so Rams name is taken with reverence by Marathi people .

Ramo Rajmani sada Vijayate Ramam Ramesham bhaje

Ramena bhihata nishachar tanu Ramaay tasmey namah

meaning

Rams name always brings victory m pray to that Ram alone

Nocturnal demons flee upon hearing his name , to that Ram we pray with bowed heads

Even today commentator when Im scared , I take Rams name . Mom is far away in India , but I remember those twillights and how his name was taken with devotion and her absolute confidence that it would deliver .

Just felt like telling you about it . Pardon me if I made any mistakes , Im really not all that knowledgeable and have nothing except my experiences to share . But I wanted to share this with u .😊

Kudos to koolsadhu and commentator... it was lovely going through all those sanskrit shlokas again and reading every bit of their proper description in such good language.

@commentator: I agree with all your points. Manav's perspective is indeed beautiful.

I also agree with that 'Raja Ram' chant thing. In fact, there was also a scene in which this aspect was highlighted... Manav tells shravani that you are making a compromise for the baby and I am making one for my bro... Manav thus makes it clear, that yes, this is a compromise and don't expect anything from me, so basically, even if tomorrow he gets married to Shravani, from body and heart, he will be committed to Archana, just like Lord Ram never gave away Sita's place to anyone in his life and Sita won as a woman.

When we analyse such things in detail, the scene comes across as extremely beautiful, doesn't it?

I think that inspite of all the rubbish BT people show, they deserve a clap for this thing, using a large number of verses etc in their shows... many of my younger cousins haven't read sanskrit like me, nor were they really oriented such that they actually read these hymns and aartis or tried to memorize them (which we as children tried very willingly), but still they know a major part of the important verses simply coz it comes up in such scenes so many times. At least somewhere... these BT people are connecting us with our roots.

@koolsadhu: you got me all emotional dear... hostel mein rehti hoon... mummy ki yaad dila di.. even I and my Mom and sis used to sit in the evenings for many years... even now when I go home... and chant the ram-raksha stotra, along with hanuman chalisa... nice little memories. The good thing is once you learn them, you can never forget them... I haven't till date..!!

Your response is very interesting and well written and informative. I learnt many things from it that I hadn't known before. The few Maharashtrian houses I've been in didn't have quite the same rituals, so I guess I was speaking from limited experience. Unfortunately, most of my interactions on the subject of Ram (many of whose epic actions I must say I do have serious ideological issues with) have been with people who support the use of his name in much nastier ways, as a banner and slogan in an ugly communal war. So I'm always a little wary and cynical when he and what he stood for are evoked in any work of art or fiction, especially by creatives exploiting popular religious sentiments to hoist TRPs.

I do completely understand the way in which god's name can become a talisman, though. I live far from home too. Thank goodness for our mothers and everything they taught us!

Commentator