(The complete audio to this rant is posted at 4:20 EST on Substack. Here’s a preview. You can get the full length LP on the stack, or on Hive.)
The First Bollywood Flick.
Your humble vagabond has watched far too many Bollywood Movies. Maybe a dozen.
Full Metal Thorsday. Welcome to one more show above ground.
We’ve been comparing and contrasting ancient epics. We’ve read The Epic of Gilgamesh a few times, and we’ve recently delved into The Ramayana. In particular the story of Rama & Sita. Every Hindu, Desi, or Indian Origin person I’ve ever met, (more than a dozen), knows this story, the way the Greeks know about Persephone and Christians know about the Pistes Sophia. (Just joking about the Christians, American Christians, that is. If you asked them about Pistes Sophia, they’ll point out the bathroom.)
This ought to score me some points for the afterlife.
Maybe it’s not so obvious, but every Bollywood, (using the term loosely, because India has other film genres besides Bollywood, plus, since 1996, they don’t even call that City Bombay anymore. But Mummywood doesn’t have the same ring to it. That’ll teach the government to go around renaming iconic cities.) Anyway, every Bollywood flick is somehow connected to the Ramayana, whether it’s meant to be or not. It’s so ingrained in the culture.
Although I’m tempted to go into the story of the name change, it would take the length of a Bollywood film to do it.
Anyway, the last Indian flick I saw was called, “Alpha.” It was pretty bad ass, too. Not too over the top like some of these super hero flicks that meet at the intersection of American Action movies that plot-jacked Chinese Kung-Fu flicks, and Masters of the Universe cartoons. “Alpha” had English sub-titles. I turned the volume off, turned up the tunes, and kept the movie running in the background while I was doing other stuff. But I got sucked in. This old-school movie junkie doesn’t need to hear or read the dialogue to get the plot. “Alpha” is a super-soldier flick, similar to, well, every other super soldier flick I’ve ever seen. The fact that the “test subject” was female, didn’t surprise us either. It just threw us back to “Stranger Things,” which we could throw back to “Dark Angel,” where we first met Jessica Alba. Heck, we can take it all the way back to Milton the Monster, and Frankenstein.
You name the character.
So I’m watching this chick wreak havoc on the facility where she was trained, from birth. The only home she’d ever known, then Boom! We cut from the dark gloomy cinders of the secret Indian military installation, to the sunny colorful streets of Madrid, and one of those intricate Bollywood song & dance segments. I’m like double u tee f!
Then, when I finally figured it out, thanks to one of those flashbacks that fill in the plot, I’m like, “How did I not see this coming?” Confession: It’s been more than a decade since I watched and enjoyed an Indian Flick.
No spoilers. The main character’s name is Sita. Straight out of the Ramayana, like Alice is right out of the Looking Glass.
This is the connection. Well, besides those other legends of women who are kidnapped because of their great beauty. Well, actually Persephone was lured and Sophia was kind of greedy. But maybe we’ll come back to those. Kidnapping women because of their beauty, (or empty promises made by the Gods), and men going to war over it… that may have started with the Ramayana, and were “re-imagined” by the Greeks in “Helen of Troy.”
But let’s get back to the Art of Story Telling in ancient Hindustan.
The King of Ayodhya had three wives and no heirs, (sons.) He was getting on in age having ruled for nearly 60,000 years. So King Dasharatha got his hands on some elixir and gave it to his wives, and instantly, four sons emerged, including a set of twins.
Rama, the star of the epic was first born, of the King’s first wife. Rama was sickeningly perfect. There were not enough adjectives in the lexicon at the time to extol his perfection, o he was compared to the beauty of the sky, the Gods, and all things beautiful. He was good and righteous and just and blah, blah, bleecch. He’s the type of guy that sells toothpaste and you just want him to go down. He’s got no shadow. No dark side.
Brother number two, Bharata, was equally good and just. The twins, Lakshmana & Shatrughna were devoted to their respective “elder” brothers. Lakshmana to Rama, and Shatrughna to Bharata.
The point of all this praise being bestowed on Rama, is obvious. He’s the “good guy.” This is a very old story, like older than writing, so whoever is telling the story has to hold the audiences attention. Because there are no pictures the sage would, (I’m guessing), try to invoke the emotions of a setting sun, or whatever, to indicate the role of Rama. He was also perfect in wielding weapons as well. He probably got better with every retelling of the story. Today’s Rama would be a martial arts master, cricket star, tech bro, and philanthropist.
The same kind of descriptions follow for the brothers, the Queens, and all of the “good” characters.
The most interesting part, is the dark side.
After 60,000 years of perfect rule, King Dasharatha is feeling his bones creaking and wants to turn over the kingdom to Rama. No problem. Everything is set. Just like that wedding that’s supposed to be held in the first hour of a Bollywood flick.
But then, like, the day before the coronation, (by the way, Rama wasn’t going to be crowned King. He was going to rule as Crown Prince, like MBS in Saudi Arabia), -- anyway, the day before the coronation, the maid servant of the second wife, Bharata’s mother, Kaikeyi, caught wind of what was going on and rushed to “warn” Kaikeyi, of her imminent danger.
Here’s where the story telling gets dark, Manthara, the evil, hunchback, (deformity is a sure sign of evil), maid of Kaikeyi, convinces her that there will be trouble for her and her son, Bharata, if Rama is named Crown Prince.
In Manthara, we can see every witch motif from Saxony to Salem. We get the image of a hunchbacked hag, full of envy and jealousy, who’s probably over 100,000 years old. Because if King Dasharatha was ruling for 60,000 years, it’s not very likely that his wives were only in their 30s. And certainly the old maid wasn’t younger than the King. But, whatever.
Manthara, gives the curious reader a “master-class” in mental manipulation, using a mother’s fear for the welfare of her son, if not her personal sense of self-preservation, to move the plot to where it needs to go. As we can surmise, it is far too early in this epic for happily ever after.
But today’s piece isn’t about the Ramayana, per se. It’s about how the ancients told stories. However, to be honest, but really I’m being skeptical, this story is so old, far older than the 500 BC date when it was finally written down, that there’s no telling how the story was told in its original form, or how many times it was revised to conform to the morals and attitudes of the day. Unlike the epic of Gilgamesh, which, (we’re told) was literally pressed into clay and turned to stone, The Ramayana survived through oration for countless ages.
What your humble seeker finds fascinating is how the plots have remained steady. In the stories compiled by the Brothers Grimm, there are always little birds chirping out the dastardly deeds of murderers and thieves, hence the saying, “a little birdie told me…” or in crime slang the, “stool pigeon,” (someone who rats out the bad guys.)
Before we wrap this one up. Another 17 days have passed. Our Hepdekad episode is up on all of our free channels. We don’t post links, however, if you subscribe, and you have 30 minutes to kill, take a look. Once again, no spoilers. If you have any trouble watching any of the Full Metal Ox episodes on the channels, you can hit me up here, (on the blog pages), or on Substack. And if you really-really wanna see the series, let me know and I will send you a link, personally.
Meanwhile,
Stay safe, stay strong, stay sane, stay savvy, stay serene, stay sovereign, stay subscribed.
PEACE.