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tions, refinements, love surpassing love, love filtered through every type of per-
sonality, in rapture or in grief. The Lord and his devotees have in common an emo-
tional liquidity that is continually expressing itself in tears.
There is a special elocution in the Ramlila for weeping speeches. As in normal di-
alogues, the rhythm remains stylized, with small word clusters paced by pauses. But
the voice is made to break, to wail, trailing from high pitch to low in a very affect-
ing manner. In the great speeches expressing grief, the actors rarely fail to weep.
The audience members also weep. Even this outsider couldn’t help weeping, though
she didn’t take Ram as her personal deity and didn’t come with the unalloyed de-
votion that the text calls for. There is something in the voices, in the collective emo-
tion and the situation, that calls forth a deep and nonsectarian response.
Some actors were particularly effective at delivering their speeches. Others were
weak but in important speeches tapped some surprising source of energy. The man
who played Brahma was ninety-six years old, could barely walk, and did not speak
very clearly. But when he delivered the great supplication to Vishnu on behalf of the
gods, his voice suddenly found strength. In an interview, we asked if he felt like
Brahma during the speech. He replied,
The emotion is there—if it wasn’t, how could I speak? Definitely the feeling of
Brahma is there. When I say the prayer, I pray from my own heart. Afterwards, I
move about like this [in ordinary clothes]. As I am, so I behave.^18The boys playing the gods are young and tender. Their feelings rise easily to the
surface. Even if they are only pretending to weep at the beginning of a speech, they
are soon genuinely, sometimes uncontrollably, weeping. Hearing them, one feels an
involuntary reaction in one ’s throat and eyes. It becomes a conditioned response to
a certain type of speech, whether delivered by children or by adults; yet the emo-
tion does not seem empty. It seems to well up from an ocean of feeling that is always
present under the surface and is merely tapped by this event and this elocution.
Mr. Nair, the Maharaja’s personal assistant, a South Indian, commented on this
phenomenon:
At the time ofaratiI feel something. There is a contraction in my throat, tears
come to my eyes. I can’t explain it. I am a rational man. I don’t believe it is really
Ram standing there. But I have tremendous respect for the idea ofbhakti. Bhakti
is a yoga and the Ramayanais a yoga. Perhaps it is contagious: such a great energy
is going through the crowd at that moment. In the Tantras it is said that you can