When I was younger, my father watched Ramayana with me to teach me that it's important to be in touch with your culture.
Mum huffed a little ( a lot), because I had homework to do.
And Daddy said all the right things about knowledge from experience and not just out of books.
And I got to watch a movie so I was happy.
They made a Ramayana themed TV soap a few years later.
And Dad gave it a try. He pointed out the evil guy to me.
He said karma wins. And then he said that one woman caused an entire war.
I got to watch TV instead of doing math.
Of course I was happy.
In ninth grade we studied an excerpt in school.
You guessed it, it was Ramayana.
I, the budding feminist, came home and complained,
The characters don't make sense.
And Father lectured that I must learn
To respect our heritage.
Learn ideals from our culture.
Like the woman who could escape imprisonment but waited for her husband to rescue her.
And jumped in fire to prove her chastity
while men who claimed to respect and love her
Stood by and watched.
I refused to, and Mother gave her sermon on talking back.
And Father accused the whole generation of disrespect.
I didn't know how.
All I did was disagree.
I haven't read Ramayana since.
It used to be my favourite because Daddy told me a story one forever ago monsoon
in a long car ride, of an ideal man who
crossed the sea with an army of monkeys on a floating rock
bridge for the woman he loved.
