Rs 4,000-crore Ramayana: Yash’s son asks if he isn’t Rama

A bedtime hero meets a movie villain

For Yash, Ramayana: Part 1 is a chance to step into one of Indian mythology’s grandest antagonists. At home, his son saw a much simpler story: a father is a hero, so why is he not Rama?

In an interview with television presenter Suma Kanakala, Yash said his seven-year-old son Yatharv has grown up hearing the Ramayana from his grandparents. When the little one learned about the casting, he asked, “Aren’t you Rama?” Yash replied that he may be “Rama in real life,” but in the movie he is playing Ravana. The boy’s comeback was blunt: “Then you are the bad guy.”

The question fans can quietly relate to

Yash said he then had to explain cinema to his son, showing him drawings and walking him through the difference between an actor and a role. He told Yatharv that when you listen to the epic, Rama is the one to follow. Ravana might look glamorous, fancy or powerful, but the path to winning lies in understanding Rama’s essence. In the theatre, his son could cheer for him as an actor, but he should not take the character personally.

That only produced the question Yash admitted he had not prepared for: “So, who do I root for?”

The answer matters beyond one family’s living room. Yash said he had thought about how his fan base would respond, but he had not considered that his own child would one day put the dilemma so directly.

What to know about Ramayana: Part 1

• Directed by Nitesh Tiwari, with music by Hans Zimmer and AR Rahman.
• Stars Ranbir Kapoor as Rama, Sai Pallavi as Sita, Ravie Dubey as Lakshmana and Sunny Deol as Hanuman.
• Releases in cinemas on November 5 as the first part of a two-film franchise.
• Mounted on a reported budget of Rs 4,000 crore.

For a film at this scale, the family story does useful work. It primes audiences to separate the actor from the mythic villain, and it turns Yatharv’s question into a test everyone can carry into the cinema: can you root for a star playing the bad guy without losing the moral centre of the epic? Yash’s answer, at least in his house, is that you can, as long as you remember which figure the story itself asks you to follow.

Source: India Today