The Epic Effect--Manifesting Media
When the news about the re-telecast of the epics Ramayana and Mahabharata reached the Ranga's ears, Ranga could not help but recollect the memories of past when the epics were first telecast in Doordarshan as serials. The promotions and marketing of the serial was unimaginably magnificent for the financial sector those days. Big banners and cutouts were installed near the town theaters for the promotion. No other serial received such a splendid welcome in those days.There was a lot of expectations for the serial to begin.The buzz around Ranga's friends group was nothing less, they too were eagerly awaiting for the serial to begin , deciding on whose house they need to turn up to watch the mega serial.
Those days owning television was a dream come true, not every household could afford it. The story of it was not some thing new, he had heard it numerous times from the discourse when his grand mother(paati) forcefully compelled him to accompany her for Katha Kalakshebams. Initially listening to the story was unmanageable with lot of distractions around. Moreover the language and the slang used by the discourser was unrelatable and was too much to handle for Ranga that he would sometime doze off to sleep in the middle and would be wildly woken up by the sudden beat of mridangam. While everyone would be into the story line, Ranga would be waiting for the climax. There would be prasadam that was distributed to everyone at the end, it was only for this Ranga had waited this long bearing with till the end. Ranga then with the joy to celebrate his successful endure by sacrificing his sleep would be proud to have bestowed with a portion of prasadam his Paati has offered him to take. In due course of time Ranga started to understand the story of the epics. Now the story was no new to him. His paati had also taken him to lots of epic based films for his deep understanding which Ranga sometimes enjoyed. This time the promotion made him to join his crew to explore the series of Ramayana.
The series was a cult, but Ranga experienced the same boredom initially because of two major reasons. One being the speed of the series along with the ad would be dead slow. The major ad break that had featured in between was an ad of washing powder in which a girl shown white frock oscillating in a swing would suddenly outgrow into an women at the end of the 1 minute ad break. Ranga always found this absurd after a kido in the viewers group doubtful questioned it. Second reason was the language barrier, as from the South, Ranga found it difficult to follow the conversation.This problem prevailed for everyone.Aiya Sami who was the only one in the village who appeared to know some syllables in Hindi was invited by the TV owner himself to translate it. Aiya saami translated some conversation to a level and added his own interpretation to the rest, which he himself couldn't get. Now the break times were wisely utilized by Aiya Saami to render his version of Ramayana which everyone believed was rightly translated as most of them had not even known the existence of such language before. Before Rama set to vanavasam( forest stay) , or married sita, Ranga was set to valaivaasam( job stay) to the city. He managed to share a room with his neighbor's relation which consisted a family of four Pattu Maami, Kittu Mama and two kids malu and Cheeku. Maalu is 2 years older than cheeku ,who was 6 at that time. At nights after his work , when Ramayana was telecasted, Ranga along with the family would watch it. Cheeku got too attached with Ranga that he always turned up to ask Ranga his doubts about the series.
Cheeku came up with amazing questions like,
" How was Sita maata born out of ground while we are not"
" Where did sita turn out for refreshments while in Ashok vatika"....etc.. to which Ranga trembled to answer initially.
Once when Cheeku saw the episode in which Rama appeared with a head bun all of the sudden while going to vanavaasam, cheeku asked
" Where did the head bun come from all of the sudden? Where did all that hair come from?" he asked doubtfully.
"Cheeku, Rama had that hair before too...." Ranga manged the situation.
" But in previous episode, Rama had only bob cut"Cheeku again asked curiously.
" Ho, Cheeku, it was there , the crown had been hiding it all this time.Now when it was taken , it is visible" Ranga managed .
Ranga couldn't believe how wisely he had handled the question. He was so proud, the constant silly questions from Cheeku had improved his presence of mind while answering them. He regarded himself to be very intelligent to have given an answer which had satisfied Cheeku. Cheeku enjoyed those parts which included graphic effects, such as fighting scenes where two arrows would impinged each other, when two astras bombarded making an effect.Once while Ranga got ready for his prayer,
Cheeku appeared from nowhere and asked
" Are you going to the Rishies?"
"No... why ? why do you ask that?" Ranga asked uncertainly.
" No, are you going to Rishi to get astras for war? like Rama got one from Viswamitra?Well, if you come across one , please get me one tooo" Cheeku told pleadingly.
"Sure...." said Ranga.
Ranga couldn't concentrate on his prayer... he was more worried as on what to reply if Cheeku asked for astra"... wont the poor kid loose faith on epic if he told, he dint meet any Rishi... If he said No Rishi would appear in kaliyuga by just praying.... "All these bothered Ranga. He wished the prayer never ended , and he struggled hard to open his eyes, bemused on what to answer. "The kid has spoiled my morning prayer.... the kid is not letting me to be at peace" Ranga thought. He extend his prayer a little more than usual, hoping Cheeku would have got distracted by something by now, and slowly opened his eyes. Cheeku appeared with tilted head sucking his thumb right before him. He had scrutinized Ranga all along trying to follow some random slokas which Ranga muttered under his breath.
" You got anything?" He asked curiously..
Ranga suddenly said"Well i lost it.... somewhere outside..."
Cheeku reverted back quietly to his room with heavy heart, while Ranga thanked God to have helped him out with an answer and started to work once again proud of his answer.
In the evening when Ranga returned, He heard a clamor all around, it was as if a bunch of aadivasies suddenly gatecrashed the house.Ranga slowly entered the house with trepidation ready to retrace his way back. He encountered Pattu Maami in the living room. She smiled at him with acknowledgement and started explaining.
Cheeku had searched for the astram outside the house rigorously and atlast managed to find a twig and had believed it as the astra. He then had impersonated himself as Rama and considered Maalu as Ravana and started beating her gently(forcefully according to Maalu's version of story)...Maalu had complained it to Pattu Maami. Pattu maami has wisely handled the scenario without taking sides by saying
"Kids you two are siblings, in that case how could one be Rama and another be Ravana? They were not siblings. You guys can be vaanaras.. the one who helped Rama find Sita" she told.
The children had found out this ideas to be more attractive and sensible to play. The had started to impersonated themselves as vaanaraas and had assumed the pillows to be the stones. Now they have started building the Sethu(Bridge) on hard rock ground.They have now presumed the cot as India and other house places as Lanka.
"Please engage them...Ranga" said Pattu Maami dejectedly.
Pattu maami had contemplated the next move, "Burning of Lanka... The kids should stay sane enough to not set the house on fire.Please go Ranga ... distract them" she paniced.
When the children saw Ranga ....Cheeku pointed towards Ranga and shouted" HEEEEE! See....Raavana is here.....Attaaaaaaaaaaaack!!!".
Cheeku swiftly grabbed a straw lying near by and attacked Ranga.
"Comon Ranga.... Say HAAA HAAA HAAA and laugh" said Cheeku.
"How could you expect one to laugh when you have a tough task of managing two vaanaras ahead?" Ranga thought to himself.
"See i have built a a aasana with the tail, I am Hanuman. You sit on the floor and I will sit on this...." Cheeku told pointing the pile of mess he had made out of books, cloths and other stuff.
"OOH! Cheeku, have you met sita maata before that?"Asked Ranga.
"Noo.. we skipped the episode as we dint have sita" Cheeku said sadly...
" Well now you have missed it we will start from beginning" Said Maalu.
Cheeku was also willing to do it all over again. Pattu Maami felt glad that the house was not set on fire...yet. Before they could again reach this far to story-line again, Pattu Maami convinced herself that the kids would be tired and it would be dinner time. Cheeku enjoyed the scenes which had vaanaras, hanuman and fights. He found uttara raamayana very boring.
Cheeku would ask " Why is Ramayana boring now a days, all characters are sad and weeping... when will asura come and astra be used? when will vaanara come?" he kept asking.
Cheeku's obsession with Ramayana escalated to the level that Pattu maami convinced Cheeku to drink a bitter tonic stating that" Only after eating this tonic Lord Rama and Hanuman grew this strong" she said. The media did prove how effective it was impacting the thought process of viewers.
Those days owning television was a dream come true, not every household could afford it. The story of it was not some thing new, he had heard it numerous times from the discourse when his grand mother(paati) forcefully compelled him to accompany her for Katha Kalakshebams. Initially listening to the story was unmanageable with lot of distractions around. Moreover the language and the slang used by the discourser was unrelatable and was too much to handle for Ranga that he would sometime doze off to sleep in the middle and would be wildly woken up by the sudden beat of mridangam. While everyone would be into the story line, Ranga would be waiting for the climax. There would be prasadam that was distributed to everyone at the end, it was only for this Ranga had waited this long bearing with till the end. Ranga then with the joy to celebrate his successful endure by sacrificing his sleep would be proud to have bestowed with a portion of prasadam his Paati has offered him to take. In due course of time Ranga started to understand the story of the epics. Now the story was no new to him. His paati had also taken him to lots of epic based films for his deep understanding which Ranga sometimes enjoyed. This time the promotion made him to join his crew to explore the series of Ramayana.
The series was a cult, but Ranga experienced the same boredom initially because of two major reasons. One being the speed of the series along with the ad would be dead slow. The major ad break that had featured in between was an ad of washing powder in which a girl shown white frock oscillating in a swing would suddenly outgrow into an women at the end of the 1 minute ad break. Ranga always found this absurd after a kido in the viewers group doubtful questioned it. Second reason was the language barrier, as from the South, Ranga found it difficult to follow the conversation.This problem prevailed for everyone.Aiya Sami who was the only one in the village who appeared to know some syllables in Hindi was invited by the TV owner himself to translate it. Aiya saami translated some conversation to a level and added his own interpretation to the rest, which he himself couldn't get. Now the break times were wisely utilized by Aiya Saami to render his version of Ramayana which everyone believed was rightly translated as most of them had not even known the existence of such language before. Before Rama set to vanavasam( forest stay) , or married sita, Ranga was set to valaivaasam( job stay) to the city. He managed to share a room with his neighbor's relation which consisted a family of four Pattu Maami, Kittu Mama and two kids malu and Cheeku. Maalu is 2 years older than cheeku ,who was 6 at that time. At nights after his work , when Ramayana was telecasted, Ranga along with the family would watch it. Cheeku got too attached with Ranga that he always turned up to ask Ranga his doubts about the series.
Cheeku came up with amazing questions like,
" How was Sita maata born out of ground while we are not"
" Where did sita turn out for refreshments while in Ashok vatika"....etc.. to which Ranga trembled to answer initially.
Once when Cheeku saw the episode in which Rama appeared with a head bun all of the sudden while going to vanavaasam, cheeku asked
" Where did the head bun come from all of the sudden? Where did all that hair come from?" he asked doubtfully.
"Cheeku, Rama had that hair before too...." Ranga manged the situation.
" But in previous episode, Rama had only bob cut"Cheeku again asked curiously.
" Ho, Cheeku, it was there , the crown had been hiding it all this time.Now when it was taken , it is visible" Ranga managed .
Ranga couldn't believe how wisely he had handled the question. He was so proud, the constant silly questions from Cheeku had improved his presence of mind while answering them. He regarded himself to be very intelligent to have given an answer which had satisfied Cheeku. Cheeku enjoyed those parts which included graphic effects, such as fighting scenes where two arrows would impinged each other, when two astras bombarded making an effect.Once while Ranga got ready for his prayer,
Cheeku appeared from nowhere and asked
" Are you going to the Rishies?"
"No... why ? why do you ask that?" Ranga asked uncertainly.
" No, are you going to Rishi to get astras for war? like Rama got one from Viswamitra?Well, if you come across one , please get me one tooo" Cheeku told pleadingly.
"Sure...." said Ranga.
Ranga couldn't concentrate on his prayer... he was more worried as on what to reply if Cheeku asked for astra"... wont the poor kid loose faith on epic if he told, he dint meet any Rishi... If he said No Rishi would appear in kaliyuga by just praying.... "All these bothered Ranga. He wished the prayer never ended , and he struggled hard to open his eyes, bemused on what to answer. "The kid has spoiled my morning prayer.... the kid is not letting me to be at peace" Ranga thought. He extend his prayer a little more than usual, hoping Cheeku would have got distracted by something by now, and slowly opened his eyes. Cheeku appeared with tilted head sucking his thumb right before him. He had scrutinized Ranga all along trying to follow some random slokas which Ranga muttered under his breath.
" You got anything?" He asked curiously..
Ranga suddenly said"Well i lost it.... somewhere outside..."
Cheeku reverted back quietly to his room with heavy heart, while Ranga thanked God to have helped him out with an answer and started to work once again proud of his answer.
In the evening when Ranga returned, He heard a clamor all around, it was as if a bunch of aadivasies suddenly gatecrashed the house.Ranga slowly entered the house with trepidation ready to retrace his way back. He encountered Pattu Maami in the living room. She smiled at him with acknowledgement and started explaining.
Cheeku had searched for the astram outside the house rigorously and atlast managed to find a twig and had believed it as the astra. He then had impersonated himself as Rama and considered Maalu as Ravana and started beating her gently(forcefully according to Maalu's version of story)...Maalu had complained it to Pattu Maami. Pattu maami has wisely handled the scenario without taking sides by saying
"Kids you two are siblings, in that case how could one be Rama and another be Ravana? They were not siblings. You guys can be vaanaras.. the one who helped Rama find Sita" she told.
The children had found out this ideas to be more attractive and sensible to play. The had started to impersonated themselves as vaanaraas and had assumed the pillows to be the stones. Now they have started building the Sethu(Bridge) on hard rock ground.They have now presumed the cot as India and other house places as Lanka.
"Please engage them...Ranga" said Pattu Maami dejectedly.
Pattu maami had contemplated the next move, "Burning of Lanka... The kids should stay sane enough to not set the house on fire.Please go Ranga ... distract them" she paniced.
When the children saw Ranga ....Cheeku pointed towards Ranga and shouted" HEEEEE! See....Raavana is here.....Attaaaaaaaaaaaack!!!".
Cheeku swiftly grabbed a straw lying near by and attacked Ranga.
"Comon Ranga.... Say HAAA HAAA HAAA and laugh" said Cheeku.
"How could you expect one to laugh when you have a tough task of managing two vaanaras ahead?" Ranga thought to himself.
"See i have built a a aasana with the tail, I am Hanuman. You sit on the floor and I will sit on this...." Cheeku told pointing the pile of mess he had made out of books, cloths and other stuff.
"OOH! Cheeku, have you met sita maata before that?"Asked Ranga.
"Noo.. we skipped the episode as we dint have sita" Cheeku said sadly...
" Well now you have missed it we will start from beginning" Said Maalu.
Cheeku was also willing to do it all over again. Pattu Maami felt glad that the house was not set on fire...yet. Before they could again reach this far to story-line again, Pattu Maami convinced herself that the kids would be tired and it would be dinner time. Cheeku enjoyed the scenes which had vaanaras, hanuman and fights. He found uttara raamayana very boring.
Cheeku would ask " Why is Ramayana boring now a days, all characters are sad and weeping... when will asura come and astra be used? when will vaanara come?" he kept asking.
Cheeku's obsession with Ramayana escalated to the level that Pattu maami convinced Cheeku to drink a bitter tonic stating that" Only after eating this tonic Lord Rama and Hanuman grew this strong" she said. The media did prove how effective it was impacting the thought process of viewers.
Good old days those were. Suddenly we all became experts of prachin hindi
ReplyDelete"punhi punhi sunat sunayi"
Mom used to address dad as aaryaputr.
Everyone became akka shree, paati shree, appa shree
There were many monkeys around the house. We used to address them with the names of Vanaras. First names we gave were nal and neel
Every action and reaction used take 5-10 seconds showing emotions in expression. 6 days of the week was spent enacting the previous episode
Sundays were always crowded.
Sweet memories which never fail to bring a smile when recollected.
Yaaa.... It was wonderful reading your comment! Thank you.....
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