A circling cue in Raavanan

(continuing a theme from my older piece…)

It is not symmetric inversion that Rathnam treats the Ramayana tropes to as much as a turning of the circle or re-perspectivization keeping intact the basic parameters of the story. This has been missed in much of the critical commentary so far. Imagine a circle split in two with one half being Rama’s, the other half being Raavana’s and Sita being this line that cuts across the circle or the ‘non-space’ at which the two worlds of the two male protagonists meet. An imaginary line really. Where Rama’s reign ends and where Raavana’s lair begins depends on Sita. She sets the limits either way. To ‘write’ an alternative Ramayana is to often invert the central value systems of this universe. But another way to do it is to simply operate from within Raavana’s lair and to examine how the world seems from this vantage point. Rathnam’s film is not really ‘about’ Raavana, it is about what happens in Raavana’s kingdom. It is in essence about Asokavanam (rumored to be the Tamil title at one point) and about what happens at Raavana’s site. It is not really a biographical fiction revolving around Raavana. In much the same way it is not meant to be a reconfiguration of the Ramayana as much as it a ghosting of this epic (which is hardly ‘one version’, not even one ‘canonical’ version). The latter is a backdrop against which this contemporary tale takes place. The film introduces cracks in the body of tradition, the film is a compendium of such interstices. Which is why it has to be compact and oblique, even perhaps opaque. And it is a story of Raavana and Sita inasmuch as only the latter can truly enter Raavana’s lair. Only she can see the world through his eyes. Everywhere else the canonical domain of Rama reigns.

A key scene in the film establishes all of this. Following the cue of the Tamil version one might call this the ‘koodathu’ scene. Veera is standing on a boat which is being spun around on the water. As Veera keeps turning with the boat he suddenly notices Ragini on the river-bank dressed for the very first time in tribal clothing or for the very first time distinctly marked by the ethos of Asokavanam. Veera admires Ragini, is attracted to her but here perhaps for the very first time he can imagine her as a ‘native’ or naturalized to his world. But we never get a clear stable shot of Ragini because the camera like the boat keeps doing a 360. Never completely. Because half of that 360 movement focuses on Veera and half of it on Ragini. The ‘twinning’ completes the circle. Veera is always comfortable on water, whether on boats or swimming in commanding fashion. The film introduces him with a spectacular dive. The movement into the abyss and eventually into water is what his character’s arc is about. Where the fall does not involve water at the other end Veera cannot survive. Dev and his gang on the other hand wade through the water and sink deep into it as they try to seek clues to Veera’s whereabouts. This scene in any case involves a whole cataloging of what should not have happened. It begins with Ragini’s cue and Veera then delivers an alternate history stitched together with these ‘should not have’ exclamations. The history that Veera struggles with and the one that should not have happened because it happened ‘inappropriately’ (the Tamil verb also carries the lexical charge of something inappropriate or unfitting). But Veera is not merely arguing against ‘events’ but also a certain ‘writing’ of those events and a certain ‘remembering’ of the same. For Ragini to then understand Veera and his world or to ‘write’ him is to gain access to his memory and his way of looking at the world. Notably as the film progresses Veera’s ‘should not have’ moments keep converting into ‘what if’ ones. He cannot quite imagine his ‘pair’ with Ragini except through the prism of an alternate future. Part of his own journey then involves rescuing Ragini from these alternative futures (and of course the ‘older’ one where he had planned to kill her) and giving her over to her present.

The traumatic flashback ends and an exquisitely timed tear drops from Ragini’s eye offering confirmation that she now comprehends the meaning of Asokavanam authentically. She can never be ‘against’ Veera after this point. She is happy to finally encounter Dev but she must head back to that no man’s land that divides her between Dev and Veera. This is not an inversion. Dev and Veera have not switched places but Ragini is now marked by Raavanan’s space more than she is by the coordinates of her original Rama world. Notice the opening montage. Veera’s hull crashes into Ragini’s smaller boat, interrupts violently her tranquil ride (she seems very much like a classic movie star of another age with the sun-glasses and the posture before the ‘real’ intervenes). Appropriately the kidnapping happens on water where Rama’s and Raavanan’s ‘borders’ cannot be mapped.

The film therefore also ends with the question: who does Ragini belong to? Rathnam will not tell us but nor will Ragini. There can never be any real erotic charge between Veera and Ragini, only the hint of one. This too is never ‘decidable’ when it comes to Ragini. When the film ends she has not yet said ‘yes’ to Veera but she will also henceforth never say ‘yes’ to Dev… the circle turns.

[The two complementary film versions also follow this logic. Two polarities. North and South. The twin hegemonic halves of the nationalist imagining. Eternal contest between the two. A tale of Hindi and Tamil. Migration from one to the other with Aishwarya at the center. It is a pity Abhishek did not take up Rathnam’s challenge to do the Tamil Dev part. The symmetry here would really have highlighted some themes in unique fashion]