For all the slang and swagger, this bold new version of the Hindu epic keeps its moral core intact, says Arifa Akbar in The Independent
The Ramayana is regarded as the greatest of all devotional Hindu epics, alongside the Mahabharata. So it takes a brave poet to rework it with the audacity Daljit Nagra employs. “The Ramayana I present now is not the one I was told as a child,” he writes in his introduction.
This revisionist endeavour brings with it the risk of censure from those who hold the ancient Sanskrit story sacrosanct, as well as the risk of indifference from those who question its contemporary relevance. So what does Nagra achieve?
