Temples of the World

If you are in Chennai, or happen to be travelling here during the last week of December, do make time to watch the two parts of the six part Ramayana by @kalakshetrafdn this music season. If the sheer amount of rubbish being churned out in the name of the Ramayana movie has left you triggered, this is what you need to watch to heal. It will restore your faith in what a truly magnificent artistic interpretation of the epic can be. An extraordinary visual production, steeped in the music, poetry, literary richness and intricate nuances of the original verses of Valmiki's Ramayana. Its in 6 parts, each running close to three hours, it brings together the scholarship and musical genius of vidvans such as Shri Mysore Vasudevacharya, alongside the splendid choreography of Smt. Rukmini Devi Arundale & so many others, a work that evolved over 14 years from 1950s - 1970s. I have watched these productions repeatedly since my mid teens, and I can say that they have shaped the way I engage with the adikavyam. Over the years, as I have grown, each viewing has revealed something I had missed before , a subtlety in the music, a deeper layer in the poetry, a nuance in the narrative, everytime i watched this, I have returned home wanting to revisit the verses of Valmiki, to read, reflect and understand them a little better. That to me is the mark of truly great art. It doesn't merely entertain you it deepens your understanding and keeps giving you something new, every single time after half a decade. @6amiji