On Reading Vālmīki

It is perhaps for this reason that literature has remained humanity's most enduring witness. Literature has never seen human life lived without suffering, misery, and moral turmoil. Every individual has overcome it differently-some have reflected it differently, some have spoken of it differently, and some have written about it differently. From Valmiki to Homer, from Kālidāsa to Shakespeare, they all understood what it means to be human. Even though human life is momentary, some have made it immortal.But for centuries, the Vālmīki Rāmāyaṇa has been flattened and toned down, reduced simply to the work of a religious poet or a historian-extreme views that have been rising for decades. This causes us to see him through our own moral lenses and political ideologies. But Vālmīki is much more than all of that: he does not dictate everything; he lets the tension linger.That is why we go back to the age of Vālmīki-and through his eyes, we look at human dilemmas, desires, and contradictions. This work quietly sits under a tree; it does not announce itself, but quietly invites souls to discern the centuries of bias surrounding him.