The Iliad & Ramayan: Striking Differences

Though the two are often compared as the founding epics of the Western & Hindu civilisations, there are two major differences. Even though the abduction of queens were the reason for the wars, in Iliad, Helen went willingly with Paris, whereas Sita was deceived & forcefully abducted by Ravan in Ramayan.

Also in the Iliad, when Achilles killed Hector, he pierced the sinews of Hector's feet, bound them with a thong, & tying the thing to his chariot, dragged his body all across the Trojan plain.

After Ravan's death in Ramayan, his younger brother Vibhishan was unwilling to perform his obsequies as he felt he was evil. But Rama enumerated all of Ravan's noble qualities & most importantly said all enmities should cease after death & insisted that Vibhishan should perform all obsequies with due respect.

What an unbridgeable difference in the two epics in the crucial matters of wifely faithfulness & treatment of enemies!

Stories: Underground & Over the roof

There are many literary works where the crucial action may not occur at ground level.

Probably the most famous is the scene in Victor Hugo's "Les Miserables" where Jean Valjean carries the unconscious Marius through the Paris sewers, ironically only to have him snatch the love of Cosette, from her adopted father.

The action shifts to the sewers of Vienna, where Graham Greene's thriller "The Third Man" is set. The war-time profiteer, Harry Lime, is chased through the sewers by his old time friend Rollo Martins & taken out. 

In the "Borrowers" book series by Mary Norton, a Lilliputian people hiding in the nooks & crannies of human habitations, find it necessary to escape through a sewer line when their existence is threatened by exposure & extinction.

If these are stories of the underground, one of the earliest of the airborne stories is the Greek comic playwright Aristophanes' "The Birds." Here two Athenians, fed up with Athens, persuade some birds to build a "cloud cuckoo land" in the air for their habitation.

Coming to the twentieth Century, who can forget the innovatively choreographed number by the chimney sweeps on the roof tops of London along with the iconic "Mary Poppins" & Bert?

In the twenty first century, we have Katherine Rundell writing about "Rooftoppers" French 'gamins' (urchins) infesting the rooftops of Paris. When Sophie starts "mom-hunting" & is being thwarted by French bureaucracy, she enlists the help of Matteo, the Rooftopper & is reunited with her mom.

"Divinely abled." Spiritual Connotations.

Persons with handicaps are now called "Divinely abled." The viewing of a lack of faculty as "Divine" can have wider meanings. In Hindu philosophy, the six passions, "arishadvargas", normally present in all beings, are viewed as enemies, & conquering them, a desirable spiritual objective. That is, the absence of these normal attributes, is considered as an aspect of Divinity. Regarding the most powerful of the six, Desire, the Semitic religions also concur in this, giving it an universal status. In the Bible, in Corinthians (7, 7-9), St. Paul says "I say to the unmarried, it is better to stay unmarried, like Me." In Matthew 19:12, it says "(Blessed are those), who have made themselves eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven." Even in Islam, where celibacy is frowned upon, the Prophet himself reputedly appeared in a dream to the father of Rabia of Basra & said "Your newly born daughter is a favourite of Allah, & will lead many Muslims to the right path." When asked to marry when she came of age, Rabia said, "The tie of marriage applies only to those who have being. Here (for me), being has disappeared, for I have become naught & exist only through Allah." She is venerated widely among Muslims even now.