a year of bumping into the Ramayana

-
I studied the Ramayana in high school but not in the depth of detail that scholars do. For me back then, it's one of those Indian epics that stood the test of time and have been transformed into different versions as Indian culture spread before the Europeans colonised Asia. In the Philippines, we have Rama at Sita, which is just a chapter of the epic. In Thailand, the Ramakien, the national epic, was derived from Ramayana. Other countries have other versions too.

So as I closed that high school chapter of my life, the Ramayana was placed in the back of my head... and then I ended up in Hyderabad in December 2016. The Salar Jung Museum had an extensive exhibit of tapestries that depicted the Ramayana... which forced me to jog my memory for what I can remember about the epic because the script used in the exhibit was Indian (not sure what type of script though). 


I thought that it was the end of my bumping into the epic; but when Biboy, Barbara, and I went to the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco in January 2017, the Ramayana was (again) featured. This time, however, there were English translations. I was able to fill in gaps in my memory about the plot of the story. Finally!


With the story complete, I was at peace with the story. But I never thought that I'd be bumping into anything Ramayana-related anytime soon. Just like I haven't bump into references to Rabindranath Tagore's work Kabuliwala since I read it in high school.

However, as I was having breakfast in Bhubaneswar in July 2017, the peace and quiet atmosphere was broken by loud stomping on the roof of the hotel's al fresco dining area. Lo and behold, a monkey soared the skies, jumping from tree to tree until it reached another section of the hotel! I was able to take a snapshot of said monkey, a Hanuman langur, I think. It's probably named after the monkey in Ramayana, who was a loyal supporter of Rama.

In November 2017, I was at the FAO Regional Meeting in Bangkok. At the conference dinner, the entertainment consisted of puppeteers depicting a story about Ravana, the main antagonist in the Ramayana. However, in the Thai version of the epic, Ravana wasn't as bad as depicted in the Indian version of the epic. In fact, he is believed to be a guardian of sorts. In fact, he kind of reminds me of Heimdall in Marvel Universe's Thor trilogy.


It's interesting that it's been a year of bumping into the Ramayana. It is a classic story, after all. I wonder what 2018's epic theme will be. Will I notice a pattern? Or will the story references just pass me by? 

We shall see.

Comments

Post a Comment

Thank you for dropping by!

Before moving on, please share your thoughts or comments about the post. :)

Thanks again!

Popular posts from this blog

Skyflakes

-
One of the more famous Philippine exports is Skyflakes , a wheat-based, salty cracker. It is one of my emergency food items: I typically have some stocked at home and in my handbag in case I become hungry (like in traffic jams). When there's no electricity and it's impractical to cook rice (because the leftover would spoil), I'd open a pack of Skyflakes and generously coat each cracker with Cheez Whiz... if I had a bottle of it within reach. Anyway, each time I spent more than two weeks outside the Philippines, I'd be elated to see boxes of Skyflakes inside Asian stores (particularly when in I was Australia and in the USA). Back then, I took it as a sign of homesickness. When I moved to California, I didn't miss Skyflakes because Mommy made sure that there's a steady supply in the house. Skyflakes is embedded in Filipino gastronomy as a snack, a panawid-gutom , that anyone who reacts positively upon seeing Skyflakes outside the Philippines must have spe
Read more

10 things I learned while driving on Marcos Highway to Baguio City

-
I went on a day trip to the City of Pines, which was around a 700-km drive from my house. I drove  going up there and then from the city to Victoria, Tarlac. After that, my dad took over the driving duties. It was day trip with Tita Ising and Tito Sibing with us. Anyway, this trip was my first time to go to Baguio City with me behind the wheel. As everyone who drives up knows, there are three main routes to Baguio from the lowlands: Kennon Road, which ascends from Rosario, La Union. It was out of my options because it's too dangerous to use that road in the rainy season. The second route is via Naguilian Road, which makes my trip a lot longer because the beginning of the ascent is in Bauang, La Union (further north). The last route, and the one I took, was the Marcos Highway, now known as the Aspiras-Palispis Highway. This 47-km road starts from Agoo, La Union and is touted as the safest route among the three.  As I drove up and then down (on the same day; we were in Bagu
Read more

Surat Mangyan

-
Image
In high school, part of the Filipino curriculum was learning about one of the country's ancient native scripts called Baybayin . I learned back then that this script was eventually abandoned because the Spanish, and eventually the Americans, encouraged the use of the Latin script for written communications. But that's in the lowlands; the rules were different up in the mountains. In the lush mountains of Mindoro, groups of indigenous people called Mangyans  live largely in isolation away from the Christianised Filipinos. This isolation has led to the continuous development of the Mangyans' old script, Surat Mangyan . As I walked inside the Ayala Museum , I saw this bamboo tube (I'm not sure if it's an instrument) with Mangyan script written all over it. I suppose that this was equivalent to a book or a song. But I haven't figured out what's written yet, despite the translation guide provided. What I can do, however, is write my name in Ma
Read more