When ‘Ravan’ stormed off battlefield to protest injustice

AGRA - Instead of getting killed, he stormed off the battlefield, leaving the Ramayan saga incomplete at a famous Ram Lila here. But now the actor who played Ravan says he had a perfectly good reason for it - undue favours to Ram and his retinue at the cost of the king of Lanka and his army!

Raju, who plays the demon king, says he was protesting the “lack of respect to Ravan” by the Ram Lila organising committee when he refused to let his character die on stage - in complete contravention of the epic drama being enacted on the grounds opposite Agra Fort Sunday night.

“The Ram Lila committee has not been giving due respect to Ravan and denying even basic facilities to me and my volunteers,” Raju alias Virendra Kumar told IANS in an interview Tuesday.

Most people who were witness to the high drama said Raju was loving the limelight and refused to give in to pressure from the organising committee to let Ravan die an early death.

But Raju said in his defence: “A lot of things were lost in the din and noise and a clear picture of what exactly happened right there in the middle got distorted.”

This was the first time in the more than 100 year history of the Ram Lila that Ravan had not been killed. Raju even pulled out a sword and the actors representing the two armies of Ram and Ravan got involved in a fight for a few minutes - much to the amusement of spectators. Raju eventually disappeared from the scene!

“Ravan not getting killed is a gross injustice to artists,” Raju admitted, though without explaining why he ran away from the battlefield. “Ravan should have been killed. This has happened for the first time in the history of Agra’s Ram Lila,” Raju said.

“For 100 years, eight generations of our family have been performing this drama as a matter of responsibility, following all the norms and rituals. But surely there is a limit to tolerating injustice.

“While the Ram Lila committee spends lakhs of rupees on Ram and his ‘mandli’ (group), they spend nothing on us. They do not even provide us drinking water. I do not know how they spend the funds.

“After Raksha Bandhan, our team of more than 80 volunteers start practicing martial arts, our Pathwari Akhara’s ‘pattebazi’ is unique. Sunday night I was there with 120 in my army and those organisers were playing dirty politics.

“They did not respond to our demands and called us all kinds of names. We kept our cool, but when things really got out of hand we had to protest.”

In many ways, the line between real life and the myth has become blurred for Raju. For, like every year his family will perform a death ritual for Ravan this year too.

Raju said the coming Sunday “the family is going to hold the ‘terehnvi’ (13th day after death) of Ravan by throwing a feast for those associated with the tradition.”

Raju is a businessman who makes iron shoe moulds. “We participate in the Ram Lila to keep a convention alive and for our love of the art. But now I have announced my dissociation. I have informed the Ram Lila committee that in future we would not be able to give our services,” Raju said.

Raju has his fans.

Culture critic Mahesh Dhakar told IANS: “It’s a wonderful sight to see Ravan and his army swinging and brandishing swords in a special display of pattebazi (a form of their self developed martial arts) practised by the family for over 100 years.”