122. performance
comes steadily more rural. Roads change from pavement to cobblestone to dirt,
houses from plaster to brick to mud, on varying levels, with glittering algae-covered
ponds, fields of leafy vegetables and corn, moist greenness everywhere. People are
at their doorways, in the yards, on the roofs. If Ram really did go to the forest with
Vishvamitra, would it not have been through lanes like this, past houses, from town
to village, while the local people stopped to watch? The sky is brilliant salmon and
mauve in the luminous moments before sunset.
...
(Events recorded at home after a night of tremendous storm.) I moved out on the
dark country road in hard-pelting rain. Someone offered to share his umbrella. It
didn’t do much good, but I stayed under it to try to save my Ramayanaand note-
book. My clothes and body from feet to chest were quickly flooded. When we
reached the Sutikshna ashram scene the wind was blowing horribly. It blew out the
petromax lamps. Everyone just stood there, waiting to see what the higher author-
ities would decide. The storm raged harder and harder. Lightning flashed, wind
whipped violently. Someone said, “After the wind, by God ’s grace the rain will
stop.” But it didn’t stop. For an hour I stood under the man’s umbrella, seeing noth-
ing. “We are also doing tapasya(austerities) in the jungle,” he said. Finally I went
to look for the gods. On a rise was a little temple built in honor of this scene in the
Ramlila, containing the stone images of Ram, Sita, Lakshman, and the sage Sutik-
shna. In the tiny shrine the principal actors had taken shelter: Ram, Sita, Lakshman,
and Sutikshna crowded in next to their own images. On the porch a few other ac-
tors and workers huddled. Finally word came that the Lila would stop and arati
would be done here. But they couldn’t find the fireworks man. Then they found him
but couldn’t find the garland man. At last they went on without the garlands. I stood
on the rise behind the gods, looking at the people below. Sita’s silk sari was wet.
There were about 800 people bathed in the light ofarati,especially jubilant in their
smiles and aggressive in their shouts. “God gives us tests,” a lady said next day.
“Last night he tested us. The real devotees stayed, the others ran away.”
...
Today we the audience, along with Ram, Sita, and Lakshman, experience the exile
to the forest. We walk from Ayodhya on the main street of town, through villages
and fields, along narrow trails, over rocks, around lakes, and across tracts of mud.
Ram’s recent warning to Sita echoes in our ears: “The forest is rough, frightful,
with prickly grass, thorns, stones....Your lotuslike feet are delicate and lovely,
while the paths are often impenetrable.”^6
