Arshia Sattar on India's Many Ramayanas

The Ramayana is an integral part of the Indian ethos. Every child in India knows the basic story of the Ramayana. There are hundreds of versions of the story in the country and in other parts of southeast Asia. Apart from the cultural traditions that reflect the diversity of this vast land, the Ramayana has now also become a political weapon of sorts.

With Diwali right around the corner, on this episode, Sidharth Bhatia is joined by Arshia Sattar, an inspiring Indian translator, facilitator, author and director. Her book - 'Valmiki's Ramayana', is an abridged translation of the epic - an epic which is said to be written 2500 years ago. A PhD in South Asian languages and Indian civilizations from the University of Chicago, Arshia has also studied under the famous scholar, Wendy Doniger, and the scholar poet A. K. Ramanujan.

On the episode, Sidharth talks to Arshia about how different people see the Ramayana, and what she feels about how it should be looked at - as a piece of literature, or an epic, or as mythology, or as tradition or history, or something else altogether? They also discuss how Arshia got interested in working in this field and what got her interested in Ramayana in particular, how every language and every subculture has its own Ramayana, how it's become the fulcrum of the 'nationalist' culture, how it has increasingly become about 'Ram Rajya' - or the idea of the ideal kingdom, how the epic actually celebrates diversity, the idea of chastity in relation to the Ramayana, how different cultures and different people put their own twists on the Ramayana, like author Anand Neelakanthan's book 'Asura', why Hanuman played a huge part in why she got interested in this and how she went about translating the text which is one of the thickest things in the game. All this and more, on this episode of Cyrus Says.

Check out Arshia's book: https://www.amazon.in/dp/1538113686/ref=cm_sw_r_wa_apa_fabt1_xBtQFbSG1J7N7

Follow Sidharth Bhatia on Twitter and Instagram @bombaywallah : https://twitter.com/bombaywallah and https://instagram.com/bombaywallah

You can listen to this show on The Wire's website, the IVM Podcasts website, app on Android: https://ivm.today/android or iOS: https://ivm.today/ios, or any other podcast app.

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