Indian Culture  Discussion Forum

Name: Anuj Bhatia

Rama, the ancient idol of the heroic ages, the embodiment of truth, of morality, the ideal son, the ideal husband, and above all, the ideal king, this Rama has been presented before us by the great sage Valmiki. Discarding all the hues of that time Mr. Ram Varma’s, Rama is a historic figure more than idols. The blank verses of his poetry, is the medium which increased the divinity of his renderings as no other language can be purer, none more beautiful, and at the same time simpler, far away from hues.

Ramayana, the Hindu epic, after all, makes for sumptuous food for imagination. It is replete with colorful and fascinating gods, goddesses and characters, whose visual representations are equally imaginative and spiritually uplifting. Colorful portraits of RAMA, hanuman, adorn the walls and puja rooms of almost every Hindu household in India but here it also abets Mr. Ram Varma’s book - Before He was God, Ramayana, Reconsidered, recreated.

Mr. Ram Varma captures those vignettes and there is an aroma in his rendering which gives the pleasant smell of an odor of Vedic times. He has rigorously sought to uncover the fundamental truths underlying episodes he has found difficult to understand. That he has felt impelled by such a sincere and overpowering urge, not to reject such difficult areas as false or yet merely to repeat them without thought, but to come to terms with them in his own way is one more tribute to the everlasting potency of Rama' s story.

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