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4. Ramlila of Ramnagar
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RAMLILA OF RAMNAGAR Texts, Oppositions, and the Ganga River The subject of Ramlila (plates 33^8), especially the month-long Ramnagar Ramlila,1 is like the story of Krishna's mouth. I have seen the great Bharatanatyam dancer Balasaraswati perform this story. Krishna's mother fears that the little Krishna has put some dirt, or something dangerous, in his mouth. She asks him to open his mouth. He refuses. She asks again and again.Finally he opens his mouth and she looks in. There, in amazement, bewilderment, even terror, she sees all the worlds. Contained in her baby's tiny mouth is the unspeakable Absolute. Revealed, Krishna closes his mouth, and with it his mother's memory of what she has seen therein. The dance ends with mother and baby playing once more simply as mother and baby. So it is with Ramlila. I look into its mouth and see all there is to be seen. I am not so certain, even though I am an American, a rationalist Jew (but Talmudic: given to inquiries and commentaries of all kinds), that I should remember what I have seen. And, doubtless, to those who have experienced Ramlila many times more often than I, this writing will be evidence of my forgetting. Ramlila incorporates several texts, both literary and performative. The B E T W E E N T H E A T E R A N D A N T H R O P O L O G Y 152 Ramayana of Valmiki, never uttered but present all the same, is in the very fiber of Rama's story. The text chanted by twelve Ramayanis is Tulsidas's Hindi Ramcharitmanas, composed in the sixteenth century. The Ramcharitmanas is as familiar to the people of North India as the King James version of the Bible is to English-speaking people. The Ramayanis spend ten days before the first lila up on the sheltered roof of the small tiring-house green room next to the square where on the twenty-ninth day of the performance the Bharat Milap—the reunion of Rama, Sita, and Lakshman with Bharat and Shatrughna—will take place. There, under a veranda on that hot roof, the Ramayanis chant the Ramcharitmanas from its first word till the birth of Ravana. With Ravana's birth, the theatrical portion of Ramlila begins—after ten days of chanting on the roof. On the first day of chanting a special Ganesh puja is celebrated—a traditional beginning of auspicious events. Gathered on the roof with the Ramayanis are the five boys who perform the swarups— the divine incarnations of Rama, Sita, and Rama's brothers; performers of other leading roles; technicians and craftspeople; and the Adhyaksha, the administrative head of Ramlila, a man who works directly under the maharaja and is responsible for seeing to it that everything goes right. But after Ganesh puja attendance on the roof is sparse. None of Tulsidas's text prior to "Listen, sage; in due time this king and all his household were born as demons of the night. He had ten heads and twenty arms; his name was Ravana, a formidable and valiant warrior" (Tulasi Das 1952, 81) is heard by the maharaja of Benares, patron of Ramlila, or by the faithful daily audience called nemis, or by the hundreds of sadhus (holy men) who stream into Ramnagar for Ramlila, summoned by Rama and sustained by the maharaja's generosity in providing dharamsalas (pilgrim dormitories) for rest and rations for the belly. These "sadhu rations" are by far the largest single specifically Ramlila expense in the Ramnagar Ramlila budget—eighteen thousand rupees in 1976. Only the Ramayanis and a few others hear the start of the Ramcharitmanas—a title that means "The Holy Lake of the Acts of Rama"—for it is with Ravana's birth that the theatrical Ramlila, the core dramatic conflict, begins. Ravana, by performing all kinds of austerities, earns a boon from Brahma. Ravana asks: "Hear me, Lord of the world. I would die at the hand of none save man or monkey" (Tulasi Das 1952, 82). Such will be Ravana's fate, for he, like Macbeth ("For none of woman born shall harm Macbeth") or Milton's Satan, is too proud. As scholars researching Ramlila, Linda Hess and I felt it was our duty to see and hear everything. But this, we soon discovered, is impossible. Too many things happen simultaneously, scatteredacross Ramnagar. WhileRama is in Chitrakut, Bharat sits in Nandigram...