Raavanan / Raavan - A Love Story

It is a brilliant and moving love story. As simple or as complex as a love story can get. A story of people who are not caricatures of the Good or the Evil, but real characters who have shades of both, who have both violence and love in them.

His story: True love always transforms and brings out the best. And this is the story of a man who discovers true love in himself and transforms, and ultimately dies for the love. Or we could also understand it to be that Veera / Beera had anyway the capacity for generous and unconditional love as is indicated by his relationship with his own people. And that his true love for a woman gives him empathy and softness. It is as much his love (later) as her purity (initially) that stops him from touching her even while she is completely at his mercy. And so we see the other characters as they relate to his love story.

Her story: The woman, who is the epitome of purity and conviction of heart. But that does not mean that she is blind to the compliment of being loved by such a man. Yet she is so free of guile or doubt in her heart that she could go back to him in all trust to find out the truth. And a character who shows that purity and fidelity does not necessarily mean a hardened heart but one that can be full of compassion and justice. The movie also reveals her husband through her eyes. She (and the audience) are shown gradually that even the good man can be blinded by authority and self-importance and become mindlessly violent for his perceived good intentions. That he could also be driven to dishonourable politics, as is seen by how he contrives to use her to kill the 'villain'. If someone says that this is not dishonourable politics but simply strategy, then they have already bought into it. A true master of martial arts would tell you so. However, her ties with him are non-negotiable as she shows straightaway and repeatedly.

And this purity of Sita of the original Ramayana is one of the few aspects that have been retained in the movie. Yes, the plot of the love story is embedded in that of the original Ramayana and so there are obvious resemblances in situations and characters. However, there it ends.

For me, the above is the central theme of the movie, keep aside all the usual critical reviews and the flaws that one sees. There are obvious flaws, however they are being given too much importance that we are unable to see the true worth of the story being told. That there are good and evil acts, but no good and evil men. All of us have seeds of both in each one of us.... and that true love has the power to burrow itself so deep and so manifest generosity, compassion, selfless anger, and forgiveness.

The inexorable storyteller leaves his audience to decide whether this Sita swallows her pride in her purity, (which she shows when questioned by her husband and says death is better than to be doubted on grounds of chastity) and goes back to her husband, or goes to her death. Now that would be a very poignant climax, the 'villain' who by now is no longer appearing to be a villain, dies in true love for the heroine, who dies in true love for her 'hero', who by now is no longer appearing to be the neatly slotted and labelled hero at all.