The spy spies on the god
The god spies on the spy
Both in amazement, nod
And wonder why.
Blue: Tales of Reddumone, The Two Faced by M S Sharan could well have become a Sufi novel, intertwining the god and the man spying on each other, caught in a conundrum of fate, the lover and the beloved twisted into knots by some esoteric quirk. However, Sharan fails to take that leap, and is reined in by something. It is understandable that it is not easy to take on gods in an age where there are eager watchdogs.
Blue is the essentially a psychological tale of Rama, narrated by Reddumone, a spy employed by Kumbhakarana, and negotiated through his own philosophical musings. The book is divided into four parts – ‘Ayodhya,’ ‘Lanka,’ ‘ Kishkindha,’ and ‘Somewhere Central.’ It is not a book for beginners; one should know the Ramkatha tradition in some way or the other. The first part starts with great promise, with a spy from Lanka being sent to spy on Rama while he is the crown prince. There are hints of how there is a greater design to this ‘Leela’ if you will, with things working out pre-emptively even before Rama has been banished. Lakshmana has tremendous liking for Sita, she even comes to meet him on the sly, but resolutely tells him that she must follow her dharma. Shatrughana, influenced by wandering saints, the Kollas, wants to abandon everything and run away. So far so good – these are borrowings from myriad traditions that Ramayana has. These need fresh interpretations, new retellings. The story is reined in with Rama being omnipresent, and him knowing all that the spy knows, and in also his spying over the spy. The humanizing of the epic is undercut further by what the title says – “Blue”. Rama is actually blue in this novel, set apart from humanity, someone who can think ahead of everyone and everything.
With such devices, Sharan sets a safe ground, and then enters into the realm of humanity again. In the ‘Kishkindha’ section, Rama breaks down in front of thousands of supporters of Angada, and confesses that he killed Vali only because he felt that Sugreeva had been wronged like him, his wife having been stolen. Rama is going to be killed when Reddumone snaps his spy code of conduct, and swoops down and saves him.
The last section, ‘Somewhere Central’ deals with Rama’s return journey to Ayodhya. Two story tellers enter this town which Rama would pass through – one of them, ostensibly, tells the story of Rama during the day, and the other one, almost an atheist, tells strange, gripping tales by the night. The second one is Reddumone. This section tries to grapple with how legends are constructed, how stories acquire their layers, how imagination is added to tales and so on. The theoretical bears too heavily, however, on the writer’s mind, one would guess, to make the narrative free-flowing and powerful in this section.
The blurb says that, ‘Blue is, ultimately a love song to Rama…It will forever change the way you read the Ramayana.’ The first sentence is true. For the second, the novel doesn’t help one re-read, but leaves one curious to dig into other re-tellings. Even though the novel reads more like work-in-progress, it is a good read for a first-time writer.