The forest chapters of the Ramnagar Ramlila begin on Friday evening. The fifteenth night of the lila, according to the day-wise programme of the Shri Ramleela Committee, Ramnagar, Kashi, takes the story out of Chitrakoot and into the dandaka forest: Rama, Sita and Lakshmana meet the sage Atri, Rama slays the demon Viradha, and the party is advised to settle at Panchavati.
The change of scene is the point of the night. For three evenings the lila stayed at Chitrakoot, with Bharata's plea and Rama's refusal to break his father's word, and on Thursday it closed the Ayodhya Kand with Bharata settling at Nandigram. Friday begins the Aranya Kand, the third book of the Ramcharitmanas of Goswami Tulsidas, the text that the Ramnagar lila follows verse by verse.
In the Manas, Rama leaves Chitrakoot and goes deeper into the forest. He is received at the hermitage of the sage Atri, whose wife Anasuya instructs Sita on the duties of a wife, a quiet passage of the book. Atri offers a prayer to Rama, and the party moves on.
The next episode is a fight. The programme lists the slaying of the demon Viradha, who bars the travellers' path, at the hands of Rama. At Ramnagar the verses for such scenes are recited by the Ramayanis while the swaroops speak their own lines.
After Viradha, the programme has Rama meet other sages of the forest. It ends with the counsel to make a home at Panchavati, the place on the Godavari where the main events of the forest years happen.
Saturday's evening is a darker one. The committee's programme lists Surpanakha's disfigurement, the slaying of Khara and Dushana, the abduction of Sita and the fight of Jatayu with Ravana. Those scenes mark the turning point of the story. The earlier nights are covered in our reports on Bharata settling at Nandigram on the fourteenth day and on Vashistha's assembly and Janaka's arrival at Chitrakoot.
For anyone planning to go for the first time, the lila asks something of its audience. There is no sound system and no single fixed stage. The verses are chanted by the Ramayanis, the swaroops speak in their own voices, and much of the action is lit by lamps and torches, so the crowd follows the characters from one site to the next and stays quiet to hear. The lila began after the fort administration finished its preparations, as we reported in the story on the opening of the Ramnagar Ramlila on 25 September.
The full cycle began on 25 September and runs for 31 evenings, to 25 October. The committee has fixed Ravana vadh for 20 October, the Bharat Milap for 23 October and Rama's coronation for 24 October. Outside the lila grounds, Sharadiya Navratri begins on Sunday, 11 October.
Sarva Pitru Amavasya falls on Saturday, the day after this episode, and the committee's programme remains the schedule to follow for each night.
