From: vigneswa@ecs.umass.edu
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian
Subject: An Indian Experience.....  by a travel writer
Date: 26 Jan 93 09:59:23 GMT

In Rama's footsteps

By Rahul Jacob

(Book Review)

	It is no longer enough for  travel writers to write about
India simply "because it is there."  Recent travelogues seem more
focused, written  within the  parameters  of a  particular  theme.
Alexander Frater, travel editor of the London  Observer, arguably
started the trend with Chasing The Monsoon and Jason Goodwin  con-
tinued it with A Time For Tea.

	Now Jonah Blank, a young American, has attempted the most
ambitious task of  all:  In Arrow Of The Blue-Skinned God he uses
the popular Indian epic of the 3rd  century BC, the Ramayana, and
the  peregrinations - both  spatial and  spiritual -  of its hero,
the Hindu god  Rama, as a prism  through  which to  look at India
today.

	The Ramayana is still a  living, vital thing in India.  A
television  serialization of the epic brought 200 million Indians
to their  TV sets every  Sunday morning.  To hear  Blank tell  it,
shopkeepers rolled down their shutters, truck  drivers stopped at
roadside  food stalls to  watch and  the whole  country came to a
standstill.  The actor  who played  Rama has to implore people to
stand when they prostrate themselves before him.

	Blank's travels  in India coincided with a bitter dispute
in 1990 over a Muslim mosque built in the 16th century at Ayodhya,
which is popularly believed to be the birthplace of Rama.  Former
prime minister V. P. Singh allowed his  government to be defeated
in parliament  rather  than concede  to demands  that a temple be
built where the mosque stands. (This was the mosque recently torn
down by Hindu fanatics.)

	Blank retraces the path of Rama, but zig-zags  off course
with abandon when he thinks he'll get an interesting  story.  The
Ramayana  begins in Ayodhya  in northern India  where Rama was to
have become king before a favorite queen of his  father, Dasratha,
usurped  the throne  for her son, Bharat.  Rama is exiled  to the
jungles for 14  years, accompanied  by his wife Sita  and brother
Lakshman.  They  put up with  all the usual  hardships one  might
expect  in such a  riches-to-rags  story with  extraordinary  for-
bearance  until Sita is  abducted by a  demon  king, Ravana,  who
whisks her off to the island of  Sri Lanka. 

	Rama follows  in hot  pursuit and  after  an epic  battle,
returns triumphantly  with Sita, who  has heroically  spurned all
Ravana's advances.  That is the Ramayana  in a most miniature nut-
shell, but the epic is also an immensely moving deliberation upon
the importance of duty  and responsibility.  Rama leaves  Ayodhya
without  rancor because, as  Blank writes in his  always engaging, 
sometimes racy rendition of the legend, Rama believes that "there
is no greater virtue than filial obedience and no greater duty."

	Such a spirit of devotion to the larger  family  of India-
if a  hodgepodge  of 870 million people who speak scores of diffe-
rent languages and worship different  gods can be described thus -
is decidedly on the wane, largely  due to politicians who play on
the country's divisions. The unfortunate hate and resentment, the
endless "us versus them" posturing  and the continual  demands by
the Hindu  majority and  Muslim, Sikh  and  Christian  minorities
alike - all  these  leave  an  indelible  mark on the writer.  In
Ayodhya's market, for instance, Blank  meets a vendor  named Hari
Prasad who  thinks that  Muslims are  violent, dirty and  untrust-
worthy.  It turns  out he  knows none.  Rama with his  message of
tolerance and love, would not have approved.

	Yet he finds reason to be optimistic, even in the cramped
compartment of a  rickety, lurching train.  It is  shared by four
Hindus and a Muslim and Blank who play cards, swap newspapers and
complain about politicians. In short, they get on - famously - as
Indians with different  beliefs and  backgrounds tend  to do on a
day-to-day basis.  How to encourage such general amity and bridge
the country's  divisions instead of allowing  them to deteriorate
into violent separatist  movements? Blank, 24, referring  to Rama
again, suggests that what is needed is a sense of duty.

	Detachment is a very important quality in a travel writer.
Blank is more than impartial, he is empathetic, stepping into the
shoes of so many of the people he  meets to see the world as they
see it and to feel their pain and happiness.  It is a good way to
understand India.

Rahul Jacob lived in India until 1987.

Jennifer Mitton is the author of 'Fadimatu' (Goose Lane Editions),
a novel set in Africa.

Thanks:                                The Toronto Star

===

Vicky:
Umass, Jan 26