Ramayana

A long-form letter to Bibek Debroy reflecting on reading his Valmiki Ramayana translation by the Tungabhadra river in May 2018.

📝 Note This is the digital form of a letter I wrote to Bibek Debroy in 2018. May 6, 2018 - May 26, 2018 Dear Mr. Debroy, It has taken me over a month to get myself ready to write this letter. I began writing it before I’d returned from Kishkinda, but I couldn’t find the time to finish it. I began writing this letter in my Grandfather’s house in a village called Kamalapura, four kilometres from the ruins of Vijayanagara. I had not yet finished the Ramayana, but I wanted to compose this letter before beginning the Yuddha Kanda. I felt that way because oddly enough, my trip this time coincided with the annual marriage of Pampa and Virupaksha. Hampi was swamped with locals. It was scorching hot. ...

Day 8 of reading the Mahabharata - reading Markandeya’s Ramayana in Hampi, Yudhishtira’s answers to the Yaksha, Savitri’s story, and Arjuna’s battle in disguise.

There is some justice in reading Markandeya’s rendition of the Ramayana, recited to the Pandavas, as I sit in Hampi. A large part of the Kishkinda Kanda is supposed to have occurred here, and I remember the stories that my grandfather told me about how Hanuman was born on Anjanadri Hill. I read of Yudhishtira’s answers to the questions posed by the Yaksha and somehow, I lost myself for the first time since I began reading the Mahabharata. Reading the story of Savitri and Sathyavan, the episode of Droupadi’s abduction and the subsequent rescue, I feel the Pandavas’ pain. It must be hard to stick to Dharma when it seems to fail you. ...