someday I would like to have a movie whose plot covers one specific saga from the ramayana: the ahalya saga and I want it to be adapted the way it has been written in the srimad valmiki ramayana, a version that, for some reason, no TV serial or movie has touched with a ten foot pole.
now, the version of the tale that has been fed to the general public through media for decades, and has been the subject of much discourse is this one:
- indra desires ahalya who is married to sage gautama
- he assumes gautama's disguise and tricks the unassuming ahalya into sleeping with him
- gautama finds out, gets angry and curses ahalya to turn into a stone statue and she is later freed when ram visits the hermitage and touches her
this version has two men - one a rapist and the other a petty, unsympathetic husband who punished his wife unfairly - and a woman who has no role of her own save for being the victim of two men and be rescued by another.
now, the version that valmiki wrote is different in the following ways:
- indra does disguise himself as gautama but ahalya sees through the disguise. she knew who he exactly was before laying with him. she wasn't violated.
- ahalya enjoyed having sex with indra and told him to leave quickly before gautama arrived.
this isn't a clueless, hapless victim but a woman who knowingly commits infidelity.
- then you have the curses that the two of them receive when gautama discovers what happened. the harsher punishment is meted out to indra who had intended to trick ahalya and he loses his testicles.
- as for ahalya, contrary to what the popular version peddles, she isn't literally turned into a stone statue and but cursed to remain alone in the hermitage and perform penance.
- also, here, ram doesn't touch her statue with his feet. rather both he and lakshman, upon arriving at the hermitage, come face to face with her and touch her feet instead.
then she receives them, provides them with hospitality and reunites with gautama.
so, what do we have in valmiki ramayana?
a god who seeks to abuse his authority unaware that his desire is reciprocated, a betrayed husband who has valid reasons to be upset and angry but, even then, doesn't go overboard and a woman who had a mind of her own, who had desires, who made mistakes and the mistake in question was not that she sought pleasure but because she betrayed someone, who atones for the said mistake and emerges so glorious that divinity itself has to bow down before her.
valmiki treats ahalya as a person, a human, and not as a plot device. the same goes for gautama here where you may not support his action but you do understand where his feelings of hurt were coming from.
this tale has been out there for years and, yet, people have collectively gaslit themselves into believing that other version. I wonder why? is it perhaps that valmiki gives ahalya a personality with thoughts and desires of her own, as well as enough to agency to decide her course of action, even if it results in a mistake, because, guess what? humans make mistakes. or is it that this woman who makes a mistake isn't doomed for eternity or punished excessively but attempts to rectify it and is lauded by the narrative for it instead of being demonized?
for years I've been hearing how the mahabharata has 'grey' characters whereas the ramayana is boring with the cookie cutter good and bad people. my dearies, how will you even notice the different shades of the characters when every popular reimagining has stripped them of their humanity and edges altogether? and you've got to be tolerant enough to accept what valmiki himself wrote even if it challenges your narrow minded outlook about what a 'good' or 'bad' woman should be.
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