Beyond Ram and Ravana: Random Blather on Awara’s Ramayana connection

On recently revisiting several of Raj Kapoor’s works I was struck by the opening moment tagged to the front of a number of RK Films’ productions. The grand patriarch, Prithviraj Kapoor, prays to a Shiva Lingam with the “Om Namashivaiaa” chant vibrating over the image.

The mythological aura of this moment feels especially relevant with regard to Awara, the seminal Raj Kapoor film and perhaps the father of Indian mainstream movies in a foundational sense. A thought that occurred to me (and something briefly touched upon in this piece on the movie) was that Awara picks up where the Ramayana ends. The film’s “prologue” has Prithviraj Kapoor—playing Judge Raghunath—facing a terrific reversal in which he stands trial at an attempted murder case where he is actually supposed to be the victim and Raj Kapoor the accused. Raghunath’s  ward, a lawyer played superbly by Nargis, defends Raj Kapoor and  confronts the gargoyle-like Raghunath (the regretful and brooding Ram in this film) for years ago expelling from his household his very own “Sita”, a wife he believes to have been raped and impregnated with a child he imagines to be the spawn of the “Ravana” of the story, here in the form of Jagga, a vengeful bandit. So it is not Sita who is on trial in Awara’s Ramayana commentary, nor even the perceived “seed” of Ravana (Raj Kapoor) but rather Ram himself, who here, in this moment, becomes “the accused” for his iconically faithless gesture.

The film is really an extended flashback that emerges out of this prologue moment which questions “Ram” and which finds resolution with a coda showing Raghunath as he faces a grand and heartbreaking revelation—that by shunning his Sita, he has secured the transformation of his son into exactly the thing he detests most—a Ravana-like criminal. Throughout the film’s extended flashback, which explains Raj Kapoor and Nargis’ romance, Prithviraj Kapoor emerges from time to time in a prolonged attempt to somewhat obsessively play out the Ramayana narrative all over again—this time by protecting a new Sita (Nargis, aptly named Rita) from what he sees as a new Ravana (Raj Kapoor, raised by his mother and an unwitting disciple of Jagga, the original Ravana in the film’s universe ). This is Ram as a snarky and aging soldier, still fighting the same fight, still enacting the same drama even as all the players have moved on or shifted into younger incarnations.

Kapoor’s visual genius is in full display with this film. There are gestures here that might be aptly referred to as Eisensteinian. Especially interesting in this regard are a couple of intriguing shots that “mirror” at certain junctures in the narrative. The first occurs in the now often-talked about (and rightly so) dream sequence. The whole moment represents a movement between heaven and hell as Raj Kapoor is torn between (speaking in context) Lanka and Ayodhya. In the hell that Jagga rules over,  a pair of massive demon-hands approach Raj Kapoor to take grasp of his contested soul.  The enormous hands are placed in the foreground, flanking both ends of the frame, extending into the frame, towards  Kapoor, who writhes between them as he backs away in fear, the flames lashing out furiously around him.

This framing is later reused towards the end of the film in two different instances. The first is an inversion or a “response” on the part of Raj Kapoor’s character to the earlier “demon hands” shot. Raj Kapoor’s character is an everyman who is ever torn between Ram and Ravana. In a key moment in which he finally confronts Jagga-as-Ravana, Raj Kapoor’s tramp vanquishes him. And as Ravana dies, he looks up at the man who has killed him, and he raises his hands in a gesture that instantly mirrors that of the demon in Raj Kapoor’s dream. We see the hands come up, trying to assume the same gesture of control, but ultimately failing. Down to the scowl on the man’s face, and the lighting scheme, (an arc of light across the frame) this image is meant to mark the earlier dream as prophecy.

With Ravana vanquished, the Awara everyman should now be all set to choose and embrace Ram, and this might be assumed to occur on dramatic terms but in an extraordinary and subversive gesture, Kapoor cradles the narrative “reunion” with a visual rejection on the part of the everyman. And he does so by using the framing device for the demon(s)–only now he places Prithviraj’s aged “Ram” in the hot seat. The old man has reached down to the cavernous domain of Lanka (the prison where Raj Kapoor has been jailed) and his arms extend to his now acknowledged son, grasping for a reunion, grasping for acceptance and perhaps absolution. But Raj Kapoor’s everyman has his back turned to this old world, approaching a window that illuminates the background, (the lighting here again parallels the two previous shots) and our gaze is drawn to this progression, this act of moving forward while leaving behind the demons of the past—whether that demon’s name is Ravana or Ram.