A broken god lies on the riverbed. Drenched in the incessant downpour, Ragini (Aishwarya Rai) asks the god for the strength to hate. "Don't show bad people in good light. Don't show them as truthful," she begs. As she wipes her tears, she senses Veera (Vikram) watching her. He smiles and asks: "What kind of man is your SP (police officer)? Is he a good man or a very good man?" "God-like," she replies.
Veera is curious about her god and muses about his greatness "I feel jealous," Veera confesses. "A burning ache deep inside.
Does your god feel jealous too? No, only Veera does-the downtrodden, uncouth brute. Not a match for you, or your god-like husband. But jealousy has suddenly made me feel matchless. It makes me feel invincible. This demon of jealousy has made me all-powerful," he declares gleefully. He looks around. Ragini has disappeared.
The scene, perhaps one of the most powerful ones in Raavanan (2010), encapsulates the multiple layers at which the film weaves in the inversion of the classic mythological epic Ramayana. The most prominent inversion is, of course, of the hero and the anti-hero.
Dev Prakash (Prithviraj Sukumaran), the devious police officer with a daunting record of encounters, is Ram.
On the other hand, Veeraiya 'Veera', a people's leader, is Raavan-an Adivasi rebel, fighting to avenge his sister's rape in police custody.
But Raavanan meddles with the binaries of good and evil beyond just the narrative. It interrogates the qualities that define the figures of Ram and Raavan in the Ramayana and turns them on their head.
Envy which is said to have possessed Raavan in the epic, leading to his downfall-becomes Veera's strength in Raavanan. Envy births love within him, amidst the endless flow of pain and rage. He isn't listening to his ten heads anymore; his heart has spoken.
Denne historien er fra October 21, 2024-utgaven av Outlook.
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Denne historien er fra October 21, 2024-utgaven av Outlook.
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Love in Bombay
In a city continuously grappling for space, lovers have found their own pockets of expression jostling against one another
Unscripted Moments
Street photography is all about finding the extraordinary in the ordinary, one candid moment at a time
Sambhal Files
An engineered silence weighs heavily on the stillness of the empty streets in the centuries-old town of Sambhal, Uttar Pradesh, where clashes with police over yet another 'mandir-masjid' dispute led to the deaths of local Muslim men
A State of Difference
What is about the Adivasis of Jharkhand that prevents the saffron lotus from blooming or even taking root, unlike in the Adivasi-majority seats of Chhattisgarh and Odisha where the BJP did exceedingly well in the past few years?
BJP Trumps Thackeray's Sena
The tables have turned on the original harbingers of communal politics in Maharashtra
Verses of Witnessing
The most imaginative chronicles of Mumbai's \"spirit\" come to us from the city's poets
Walking Through the Homes
Chandni Chowk is being usurped by a redevelopment model that will wipe out its unique blend of history, culture and commerce
Cost of Living, Price of Loving
In Mumbai's Kamathipura, the business of sex fails to keep up with the profits of real estate
A Taste of History
A delectable food walk in Old Delhi uncovers layers of history
Dramatis Personae
Comparing an actor's struggles in Delhi and Mumbai maps out the differing cultures of two disparate cities
