Kill the demon hidden in us first, says Ravana

By Sandeep Datta

As Ramlilas concluded Friday, there are many lessons this  annual enactment of Ramayana has left behind for the public to learn from and imbibe in their daily life, most important of all being killing the demon in us.

According Kuldeep Singh, who played Ravana's role in Lav Kush Ramlila Committee, Red Fort, Ramayana underlines the strong need to first kill the demon existing in our minds before searching happiness in life.

"There is demon hidden in us, in our thinking. "It comes out whenever we are dealing with others, especially the women fraternity. We all need to kill it with introspection."

"We need not forget a woman gave us birth after which we get related to sister, wife and daughter in our family. When we talk about women or view any modern girl with a lecherous mindset, like because of her dress, we need to remember if our own daughter or sister or mother does the same why we never develop any amorous feeling. We rather feel happy about them," he added. 

Apart from various lessons that Ramayana or its annual enactment in the form of Ramlila teaches us all is to check before your trust, says Chandni, who played Sita's role in the Nav Shree Dharmik Ramlila Committee at Red Fort.

"While it is good to know others. But there is need to revisit our definition of blind faith, as my role also conveys in a sense. We cannot forget it's Kalyuga, where one has to think many times before showing faith in strangers for any help," the Delhi University's English honours student added.

According to Varun Gupta, who played Hanuman's role in Lav Kush Ramlila at Red Fort, Ramlila conveys to us a lot about life, especially devotion and value of balancing as per different roles all of us play in daily life.

"As Hanuman, I would say devotion in life like my character reflects is very important in whatever we do but balance in life is also very important. I visit temple daily for 10 minutes where I lose myself in the feeling of being with God. Then I leave for work for next eight hours, where I don't take any personal call. When I return that time is meant just for family and nobody else," he said.

Sunny Kumar, who played Rama's role in Lav Kush Ramlila, feels what Rama did and how he did it in Satayuga was right at that time. "It left us a lot about how to lead a life in many aspects. Though the ideal life of Rama may not be possible for most of us but even if we derive even a fraction of the teachings His life conveys to us, we can transform our lives."