an open-air ramayana. 121
- It is difficult to convey the intensely physical quality of participation in the
Ramlila. It arises from the continual movement through different kinds of
space, the exposure to the elements, and the great enveloping crowds.
Coming at the end of the monsoon season, the Lila usually has about ten
days of rain. The open environments afford little or no protection for the
spectators, and often the actors are caught as well. Roads and paths become
flooded, then clogged with mud. Only in the most impossible circum-
stances is any part of a scheduled Lila postponed. Large umbrellas protect
the gods, the Ramayanis with their sacred manuscripts, and the Maharaja.
The rest fend for themselves.When there isn’t rain, there may be intense
heat. As the fall season advances, the heat may turn to chill.
But perhaps the most overwhelming physical sensation of the Lila is the
constant necessity of mingling with, sometimes being crushed by, the
colossal crowds pressing and tumbling forward to get their vision of God.
The following descriptions, from notes written on the scene, may help to
vivify this experience for the reader:
Going through the Ramlila barefoot involves both convenience and hardship.
Convenience when we move through watery tracts—I don’t have to worry about
losing my shoes in the mud or carrying them. Hardship because sometimes the
road really is rocky, and you never know when you’ll step on a rusty nail, a piece
of glass, a thorn. Of course all fastidiousness about whether you step in excrement
(human, cow, horse, elephant, dog, goat...), coughed-up mucous, spat-out
betel, has to be abandoned, at least in the dark hours.
Why do the stones in the road seem to be getting ever bigger, sharper, more nu-
merous? Probably because my feet, unused to night after night of rough traveling
without shoes, are getting ever more tender and painful. But this experience serves
to unite me with the characters in the Lila: “The blisters on Bharat ’s feet glistened
like dew....All the people were grieved when they heard he ’d come that day on
foot.”^5
...
In tonight ’s Lila the sage Vishvamitra takes Ram and Lakshman on a foray to kill
demons in the woods. The use of the world as a stage goes far beyond anything that
might be called “verisimilitude.” We move from the main street of town to narrow
lanes, a troop of horsemen in front, the Maharaja with his elephants behind, the
golden gods in the middle gliding along at shoulder height. Shopkeepers and labor-
ers stop to watch the gods go by, saluting them with joined palms. The setting be-