a year of bumping into the Ramayana

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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.

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