Remembering Ravana on Dussehra.

I woke up today to a WhatsApp message wishing me 'Happy Dussehra.' And as I logged into LinkedIn, my page was flooded with messages commemorating the victory of 'Good over Evil.'

Usually this would not have meant anything to me. Since as a matter of 'principle', or stubbornness, if you will, I make it a point to 'not celebrate' any festival. In fact, one of the measuring rods for my closest friendships is that, my closest friends do not wish me on any festival, and neither do I.

However, this Dussehra, I am away from India (i.e. Bharat, as the endonym goes), which is a first in many years. And so the messages hit me with a sense of nostalgia.

I come from the Eastern Indian province of Odisha, where strangely enough Dussehra is not about Dussehra. We are busy celebrating 'Durga Puja' during this time !

'Durga Puja' is of course about school holidays, large makeshift pandals where huge clay idols of the Goddess Durga are erected, painted, and adorned with fine jewels and weaponry, and the mandatory depiction of the slaying of the demon king Mahishasura by the Goddess, again as a symbol of victory of good over evil (It would seem that Hindus are hell bent upon ensuring the demise of the poor evil ! ).

The only mention of Dussehra during my childhood would be from my mother, saying sometime early evening on that day, "Today is RavanaPoda, but you do not go there, too many people, and some cracker might misfire and hit you, like it hit my childhood friend in the eye, many years back."

Referring to the public spectacle of installing on a public ground, a large Ravana idol made of papermache, and other combustible material, adorning it with crackers, and getting a person dressed as Lord Rama to shoot an arrow of fire at it, thus setting off fireworks, for the benefit of the general public (Yes ! Evil has to be destroyed at all costs).

However, villains in Indian tradition are never uni-dimensional characters to be loathed and feared. They have rich background stories and depth of character, and there are often sections of Indian society that celebrate, and even worship their positive attributes.

The reason behind this may be that heroic characters like Lord Rama, also known as 'Maryada Purushottam' which loosely translates to 'epitome of dignity', set a frighteningly high standard of ethics and morality, that becomes near impossible for the common man to emulate within the vagaries of modern life.

The character of Ravana is one such celebrated antagonist from the annals of Indian tradition. One can often hear Hindu priests allude to his knowledge, and scholarship, as they swear by the beauty of the lyrics of the 'Shiva Tandava Stotram', composed by him in praise of Lord Shiva.

However, in Indian tradition it is not only the common man who bows before the antagonist, because of his own inherent frailty of character. But even the Gods themselves, sometimes stand, hands folded, before these grand characters.

As the legend goes, after Lord Rama vanquished Ravana in battle, to rescue his wife from the clutches of this antagonist, he realized that he had spent the better part of his youth roaming in the forests looking for his wife. Now that he had rescued her, it was his duty to go back to his kingdom and govern his people.

But he realizes that he has no experience of governance and must go to his dying foe, the legendary King Ravana and seek pearls of wisdom, in order to understand the duties of a King. Ravana happily obliges, at peace with himself and charmed by the humility of his conqueror.

"The most important advice that I can give you", Ravana says to Rama, "is to delay bad deeds that you want to do, as much as possible, and to do any good deeds that come to your mind, right away."

"I was destroyed and my kingdom lies in ruins today, because the bad deed that came to my mind, that is, to abduct Sita, I set off doing right away. But a good deed that I had thought of doing for my subjects, that is, build an elevator to the heavens for them, I never completed."

"Take lessons, from my life, O Rama", he says, "and never repeat the mistakes that I made."

This minimalist and grounded approach to morality of the fallen Ravana, seems much more accessible to me, than the exalted, purely duty-based jurisprudence on which Lord Rama's life appears to be based.

And that is why on every Dussehra, I spend a moment, taking note of Ravana's minimalist approach to morality, as embodied in his advice to Lord Rama.

Anant Kumar Asthana tenzin tsundue