Ramayana 3392 A.D.

Rama using New Age Bow and Arrow in the midst of Blazing Fire.

Do not worry it is the futuristic approach of mythology. Ramayana, the age old epic told by millions of Indian, the face of Indian culture to the western world and the reason of Diwali is now available in a brand new package known as ‘Rama Reborn’ or ‘The Odyssey of The East - Ramayan 3392 A.D’. Rebirth of Rama in a highly advanced society where common man uses exotic technologies in their mundane routine. Ravana-the evil Asura of this epic is claimed to be made up by nano-technology. I am not joking; indeed it is the new face of Ramayana which is recently launched by the Virgin Comics. Here goes the exact word of the CEO of Virgin Comics.

"Ramayana has inspired the lives of millions of people through the ages. The re-imagining of this great ancient epic through the creativity of a game platform re-affirms the fact that Ramayana is one of the greatest stories ever told," said Sharad Devarajan, co-founder and CEO of Virgin Comics.

I wonder what Swami Valmiki thought while writing down this legend. I pray to God to give his soul peace, I am quite sure he would have not been happy to see Rama and Dashratha talking in fundax English, to make things worse, Laxman teasing Shatrughan by saying ‘Tabby-Ticky ,Tabby-Ticky’. Alas!! If not Valmiki I am quite sure Shiv Sena would not let the Virgin Comics down. On the contrary, reviews are good and it is now a Best Seller in the Indian and the US comics market. After some research I found that this is not the first time Virgin comics trying its luck on Indian mythology. They have already published comics with the exotic Indian names such as Mandakini (The Serpent Girl), Devi (The Female Warrior), Sadhu (The Saint Man). But unfortunately they didn’t receive much attention like the Ramayana 3392, may be because they used just the Indian name while keeping the story line purely westernized fiction.

Preview of the Introductory Page of the comic.
(They deliberately used the brownish color to give it a look of an ancient manuscript. Moreover it seems to be more like a the LOTR themed story with maps and full explanation of the whole legend by a third person, probably Valmiki)

The Graphics of the comic is worth appreciable. When I first saw the preview of the pdf comics I was stunned to see the level of imagination. Pictures have the background of the ancient India but at the same time they also resemble to the would be 3392 AD technology. The ornamentation is excellent and grand. It would be great to watch an epic movie based on this comic similar to Frank Miller's 300. Sony soon releasing a PS3 based on this theme, which I guess would give a strong backing to the market of the comic.

Coming to the background and building of the characters, they resemble more or less to the Valmiki's Ramayana. Characters have similar nature and physique, even the society seems to be similar to the Valmiki's Ramayana. I am using Valmiki's Ramayana because I don't want to mix up the New-Ramayana with the old one. I guess it would be unfair from my side to say that the artist of this comic didn't do anything, so New-Ramayana is the Virgin Comic's Ramayana. They have done a great job to build the characters with time, so that they easily mingle with the 3392 technology. Let us take the characters one by one.

Rama : The central character of the whole legend.

(The Character of Rama is kept very much similar to the old epic. The only thing which has changed, would be the sophistication of the weapons. After all it is a New-Rama-With-New-Weapons)





Ravana: The Main Villain of th whole story.
(He is shown as the evil man in the legend but now few fundamentalists have come up with an idea that Ravana was not a bad person, he was doing his Karma, for which he came on Earth. How Virgin Comic going to portray Ravana is still a debatable issue because they haven't published much of the episodes. Let us wait and see what is there in the box !!)





Hanuman: A devotee of Rama also considered as a God in Hindu Mythology.
(They have beautifully shown the strong built of Hanuman but what is concerning me is the physical appearance, more like a beast than a monkey. Nevertheless, they have also reformed the Gada to an Enlarged-Stone-Age-Weapon.)





Asura: The Warriors of ravana, the rulers of hell and the symbol of evil.
(Asura looking like the Ogres we have seen in the LOTR, which looks similar to one of those Warcraft-characters)

ps: Images have been taken from the Virgin Comics site.

Spectacular ~ Spectacular

Courtesy: Moulin Rouge Movie

The show Must go On, One Day I will Fly away, Spectacular Spectacular ~ These are few quotes from a musical extravaganza, Moulin Rouge. Not a movie but a true visual treat and a piece of an exuberant vision, vision of the director Baz Luhrman. Yes, he is the man behind this spectacular bohemian love story. High quality of animation and intelligent mixing up of new age music with the old classic Moulin Rouge soundtracks makes the whole experience an audio-visual treat. Nevertheless, watching it on the big screen with BOSE speakers was an experience which can’t be written down in words.

Nicole Kidman as usual looked stunning in the role of Satine but I was amazed that she was not only looking gorgeous on screen but had a mesmerizing voice when it came to singing. First time I watched the movie trailer on television when I was in standard 11 and I said to myself only two words ‘Spectacular-Spectacular’. Indeed it is an opus movie made on Grandeur scale to tantalize the senses. Despite of the fact that the story was too cliché still it succeeds in grasping the attention of its audience from the beginning to the End. The story of the movie was inspired form a famous Sanskrit drama wrote in 5^th centuary BC known as ‘Clay’ play. The same play has also been adopted by various movies such as Utsav, story of a beautiful courtesan Vasantsena and her affair with a penniless Poet. To make things worse the evil Maharaja of Vasantsena fell in love with her and of course the ending was an expected juxtaposition of melodramatic events leading to death of the beautiful Vasantsena. The story of Moulin Rouge was no different from this play, indeed the movie ended with the death scene of Satine, perhaps leaving marks on each and every character including the penniless Sitar Player Christian.