RAMAYANA- A RETELLING !MULTICULTURAL ECLECTIC VERSION !
Ramayana-a retelling,written by British Indian poet,Daljit Nagra ,just published has been short listed for the 2013 T S Eliot prize.'Modern' version of the mythological epic,has been inscribed in a mish-mash of Indian English,British English,old fashioned English,words from Hobson-Jobsan,American English,Australian English,Hinglish and Punjabi.
Rather a lot, it turns out it, in his rollicking, often rude and riveting version of an epic that is as much an instruction manual on how to live as a graphic adventure narrative of war. This is, first, not a faithful retelling but a high-octane mythology redux which makes a conscious effort to be contemporary, It uses street parlance, hybrid Punjabi and a visual onomatopoeia achieved by different fonts, styles and spellings ("BASTARRDDDDS YOOOOO ALLL SHUTTTING UPPP" represents a shout, while verses on flying spears are shaped as this weapon arching across the sky). More radical - and less gimmicky – is its crude humor and racy sexuality. There are obscenities in Punjabi; libidinous characters crave "gigolo action"; women are "totty", warriors "top dogs", while demons are "randy" or "cruising to be bruising".
Violence appears vivid, modern, almost celluloid, rather than the kind that belongs in an ancient epic. While noses and nipples are sliced off, heads speared and bodies ripped apart by arrows, great armies appear on the horizon in the same multiplying scale as Mr Smith's android army in The Matrix, and warriors have special deadly powers as imaginative as those found in The Incredibles. A monkey can shrink or grow his way out of peril; a demon's son can become invisible on the battlefield; another monkey can absorb the strength of its enemy. Meanwhile, a fireball flies through the "billion galaxies" to the battlefield with the futuristic adrenalin rush of an SF movie.
EPIC LINES :-
*"Goonda"Sita hisses at Ravana as she is being abducted and then turns to the heavens and pleads for divine intervention with a filmi "Bachao".
*Lord of underworld,with his twenty eyes,is ever watching circumambient.His ten head become their tamarind style,his ten heads from a distance are dog ugly indeed.For who on two shoulders wears ten heads ?
*Rama to Sita :"but Sita,these Raksassy,Gandharva and Arsoora do not fight by our rules."
*Ravana to Sita :"come now to my crystal bed in Lanka.Let's be getting tip-top pleasure."
His book ends ambiguously with Brahma coming down to earth and telling Rama he is Vishnu and the couple falling into profound silence,so overwhelmed are they by the pressure of being human.
It will be interesting to know,how Hindutav [Moditav] sanghthan of Saffron brigade are going to 'receive' ultra modern version of mythological epic,during forthcoming chunovee halla-gulla ???
[Media reports].
Ramayana-a retelling,written by British Indian poet,Daljit Nagra ,just published has been short listed for the 2013 T S Eliot prize.'Modern' version of the mythological epic,has been inscribed in a mish-mash of Indian English,British English,old fashioned English,words from Hobson-Jobsan,American English,Australian English,Hinglish and Punjabi.
Rather a lot, it turns out it, in his rollicking, often rude and riveting version of an epic that is as much an instruction manual on how to live as a graphic adventure narrative of war. This is, first, not a faithful retelling but a high-octane mythology redux which makes a conscious effort to be contemporary, It uses street parlance, hybrid Punjabi and a visual onomatopoeia achieved by different fonts, styles and spellings ("BASTARRDDDDS YOOOOO ALLL SHUTTTING UPPP" represents a shout, while verses on flying spears are shaped as this weapon arching across the sky). More radical - and less gimmicky – is its crude humor and racy sexuality. There are obscenities in Punjabi; libidinous characters crave "gigolo action"; women are "totty", warriors "top dogs", while demons are "randy" or "cruising to be bruising".
Violence appears vivid, modern, almost celluloid, rather than the kind that belongs in an ancient epic. While noses and nipples are sliced off, heads speared and bodies ripped apart by arrows, great armies appear on the horizon in the same multiplying scale as Mr Smith's android army in The Matrix, and warriors have special deadly powers as imaginative as those found in The Incredibles. A monkey can shrink or grow his way out of peril; a demon's son can become invisible on the battlefield; another monkey can absorb the strength of its enemy. Meanwhile, a fireball flies through the "billion galaxies" to the battlefield with the futuristic adrenalin rush of an SF movie.
EPIC LINES :-
*"Goonda"Sita hisses at Ravana as she is being abducted and then turns to the heavens and pleads for divine intervention with a filmi "Bachao".
*Lord of underworld,with his twenty eyes,is ever watching circumambient.His ten head become their tamarind style,his ten heads from a distance are dog ugly indeed.For who on two shoulders wears ten heads ?
*Rama to Sita :"but Sita,these Raksassy,Gandharva and Arsoora do not fight by our rules."
*Ravana to Sita :"come now to my crystal bed in Lanka.Let's be getting tip-top pleasure."
His book ends ambiguously with Brahma coming down to earth and telling Rama he is Vishnu and the couple falling into profound silence,so overwhelmed are they by the pressure of being human.
It will be interesting to know,how Hindutav [Moditav] sanghthan of Saffron brigade are going to 'receive' ultra modern version of mythological epic,during forthcoming chunovee halla-gulla ???
[Media reports].
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