Many Ramayanas

It is rather interesting to note the flaring passions at the omission of Ramanujan's Essay. Indeed it is symptomatic of DU's discomfort in the face of what is seemingly "unscientific" and outrageous to the modern notions of religion. Of course, it is a minor victory for the right over what it thinks is a dominantly leftist academic tradition. But, are we really surprised? Haven't we been witnessing an essentialisation of Indian culture for a very long while now? And freedom of speech? What the..

First and foremost, let's be honest. Secondly, let's face what is out there in front of us. Ramanujan's essay is not lost. In fact, I don't think the essay was going to be discussed half as much without this omission. It might very well be an opportunity to discuss it inside and outside the class. Are the students only capable of lamenting? Or can they create? Can't they add to the spirit of Many Ramayanas? For me, the real questions lies in Ramanujan being compared to Rushdie, scholarship being challenged for desperate iconoclasm. Do we have answers to those, or are we really supporting Ramanujan in an iconoclastic spirit associated with the left? I have my doubts for I see no wider commitment to scholarship otherwise.

I remember vividly Eddin Khoo's beautiful lecture on Wayang Kulit, a traditional art form of Kelantan in Malaysia. How he spoke of having lost a sense of wonder, and retaining mere nostalgia, lament, loss. He said, "when I speak of culture as basically reflecting the essence of who we are, as encapsulating our history and our past. And telling us very deep things about how we're constituted, you know, as a society. People can't seem to grasp that. And it's because, I think, our collective sense of self is still very underdeveloped."

It is not merely about how many Ramayanas exist out there. They exist out there because many Ramayanas exist within us. Everytime I came across any telling of it, I created many more stories within myself. Ramanujan only told us what we always knew. The evidence outside only reflects the evidence inside. If you retain the capacity to wonder about Rama's predictability and Meghanad's majesty, if you retain a discomfort with what they tell you as "truth", fiction has survived. Let them say our stories are false, that's not what happened. As long as we possess the joy of playing with possibilities, we have it all. We can use an A and B to make an ice-cream cone and nobody in this whole damn world can stop us from eating it