So, as the story was told in a nutshell in the earlier post (when I imparted hopes of returning with a post on my take on Vanar Sena) now let me get in to the details of the Vanar Sena AKA the Army of Monkeys (taller, stronger, sharper than Men). So, as you must have read in the last post, after Sita was abducted by the Kind and Benevolent (yet revengeful) Ravan... Ram and Laxman go crazy searching for her. (Neha AKA Jhaansi ki Raani says he is Lax-man, you know like Spiderman & Superman.. lol).
Anyway, they wander through the forest searching for her... Sita! Sita tum kahan ho, but all in vain! ( Dude! you should have thought of that before you went on a poaching spree to kill the gold deer aka Marich) So, while they were all over the place looking for her... the guys came across Hanuman. Now, I know what you are thinking, Hanuman as in an intelligent superpowerful monkey right! Well wrong.. this is where my theory kicks in. So all this is happening as a part of a very old school drama, somewhere in TretaYug (Ramayan is one of the oldest texts ever written). So, as per the story, Ram meets Hanuman and Hanuman introduces him to his tribe leader Sugreeb(now Banished by brother Bali). Sugreeb and Ram sign a treaty: you help me kill Ravan, I help you kill Bali. So, the treaty is a win win situation for both. So Ram kills Bali, and then Sugreeb raises his army of Monkeys and Bears, builds a bridge, gets Sita Maiyya... you all know this part!
Now coming back to my theory again, the strong suspicion roots from the fact that writer Valmiki, got lost as a child in the forests and was raised by a hunter. He later turned in to a dacait/bandit and indulged in to plunder and loot. Later under the advise of Maharishi Narada (who narrated this story of Ramayan to him) he became a wise man and penned the great epic sometime between the 4th and the 2nd century BC.
So, now this got me thinking... wandering in the forests he must have encountered people in those centuries who used to live in forests in tribes. Maybe of some African-Indian or Dravidian origin whose bone structure was yet suffering from the marks of the famous Ape to Man theory of evolution (as my frien A points out).. their bodies were fit and strong as they were jungle people and they were more like Tarzan, inhabitants of the Trees and loved to swing on the branches. ***Drum rolls** the catch here is, Ram and Laxman meet this Jungle-Tribe-Tarzan like strong and agile individual swinging from branches. He introduced himself and offered help. The Jungle warrior was actually Van Nar which was later mistakenly (or maybe on purpose) interpreted as Vanar!! So, Hanuman introduced him to his tribes the other Van Nars and together raised an army to save Sita... As simple as that! No Monkey business here!!
Coming back to the poor misunderstood Ravan ( I mean Hanuman maybe confused to be a monkey, but Ravan has even graver problems at hand)... think about it people. If Ravan was so bad then picture this scenario: Hanuman goes to Sita as a messenger of Ram, he is captured and brought before Ravana. Ravana orders to kill him but then he decides not to as that would be breaking the laws of Justice! Hanuman came as a messenger and not as a warrior. (See how cool Ravana was!) Anyway, so under the influence of the enraged court members, to insult Hanuman, he ordered to put a tail on him and set it on fire. (No the tail I believe was originally not there!!) So, these court people thought, he is a Jungle Warrior, let us insult him by treating him like an animal... so pin the tail on the man, and make him a monkey! Sigh!!
However, they misunderstood the power of this Van Nar, and they watched helplessly as with the false pinned tail Van Nar raged havoc and burnt down half of Lanka (this may be a little exaggerated!) and then he quietly returned to Ram and they started preparations of the great fight!
So there it is, I said it! the load is off my chest now... :D
And please people, I hope you understand that I have done quite a bit of research on this ;P
lol..okay now at your special request, my take of laxman aka lax man is that he if only he really was lax man it would mean he would act a laxative for all constipated people ;) u know what i mean .. :P and of course, in that light cannot be compared to spiderman and superman.
ReplyDeleteI don't agree so much with the tail part of it though..you know how we really had a tail when we were still Neanderthals and had not evolved into Homo Sapiens so maybe, Sugreev and his army were in a part of the world which had not evolved into Homo Sapiens and still had the tail
Sigh! Now only if I can be that creative when it comes to work :P
I agree with Queen Bean .. it is possible that they had an extended appendix at that point in time.
ReplyDeleteWow! You guys rock! :D
@Khushboo: thanks for the Lax-man comment. And on the tail thing! I have my doubts on the extended tail.
ReplyDelete@Manasa: I think even if they had a bigger tail bone, evolving in to almost a man and still having a tail huge enuf to burn the whole of Lanka maybe exaggerated.
And Yes! Guys, A just said, he hates it but I have a point! :P
ReplyDeleteValmiki was probably Ekta Kapoor's ancestor, which explains the exaggerated anger and extended length of tail.
ReplyDeleteSo would that make Ramayan, 'Kahani Valmiki ki' ... ? lol.
Would you wanna write about what Sita must have done to keep herself amused in her Van vaas?
I think Ved Vyas was her ancestor too! My Mahabharat tutorials have made me think and I can draw a lot of parallels between Mahabharat and Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi
ReplyDeleteYou have beaten the hell out of Ramayan, Raavan, hanuman and me as well. The research work is too good, especially the van-nar part, kudos!!!
ReplyDeleteWell I also think Hanuman was a Jaroa from Andaman! but eh! Wat the hell :D
ReplyDelete