Katkatha Puppet Arts Trust: About Ram

Katkatha Puppet Arts Trust: About Ram

About Ram is an experimental theatrical piece using excerpts from the Bhavbhuti Ramayana and told through animation, projected images, dance, masks and puppets. It tells the story of Ram, the prince of Ayodhya is exiled by his father, at the instigation of his step mother. He crosses the river to the forest with his wife Sita and brother Lakshman. Sita is kidnapped by Ravan the king of Lanka and kept prisoner. As Ram sits by the ocean looking at Lanka across its vastness his life flashes by, he feels powerless and dejected as he longs to fly across the ocean to his beloved Sita. The puppeteers help him by projecting his desires into the mask of the super hero Hanuman which attaches itself to Rams face, at once turning him into a super powerful simian who leaps across the ocean and reaches Sita.

In this journey and the bloody war that follows with Ravan, Ram becomes a king, forced to choose between the duty of the throne and the love of his wife.He rules alone for the next 10,000 years.

This adaptation looks at Ram as a human being and not as God. It traces Rams inner journey as a man tormented by his forced separation from his wife Sita. He then fights a fierce battle with the demons to rescue Sita only to be tormented by his own inner demons. Is Sita still pure? Will the people of Ayodhya ever accept her?

About Ram was created with a performance grant from the India Foundation for the Arts and in collaboration with animator Vishal Dar.