*SPOILERS AHEAD*
As the last scene of Sita Ramam unfolded, I was struck with the realization that how much Roja appears to be a complete fantasy, though I know that it was inspired by a real-life story.
A couple of years back, my then 8-year old daughter refused to watch the movie beyond the scene where Arvind Samy is abducted by the terrorists, since she found it very scary. This was coming from a child who usually watches a lot of movies, though, mostly the masala movies which I usually don’t like. Since then, every time I mentioned Roja, she has always said that she won’t watch it.
Ever since I saw the very first trailer of Sita Ramam, I was totally fascinated by it and kept eagerly waiting to watch it. I didn’t read the plot or any spoilers about it. I expected it to have everything from a beautiful love story to some war sequences, just from watching all the trailers and songs. The trailers already had me prepared for the fact that the story of Ram and Sita hadn’t met the ‘they happily lived ever after’ ending. Or so I thought, until I watched the movie and realized how totally unprepared I was! I had always been assuming that Ram would be alive!
I was completely caught off-guard when the movie actually turned out to be such an intense story of love and patriotism! And I am sure my children too would have felt the same way, since we watched it together, not expecting it to have this level of reality and intense emotions! It’s another fact that my daughter refused to answer me when I asked her if Roja now seemed much more easier to deal with.
The reason I keep turning to Roja is because that must probably have been the first movie of this kind that I watched as a child and it left a long-lasting impact on me about Kashmir, army, war, politics and patriotism.
After finally watching Sita Ramam yesterday, I was totally blown away by the visuals, attracted by the beauty of the written word in the letters of Sita Mahalakshmi and Ram, charmed by the world of fantasy in which this musical love story was woven in, captivated by the suspense and twists all through the movie, struck hard by the harsh uncertainties of life at the border, and, above all, completely torn by the heart-wrenching fate of Ram and Sita! The end of Ram continued to haunt me all through the night and I just couldn’t bring myself to sleep.
It isn’t often that a movie like Sita Ramam comes, which takes the effort to take you through a complete emotional journey of two lives replete with stunning visuals and beautiful music – their thoughts, their feelings and their principles, their longing for a life in a world of fantasy versus the reality that their life goes through given their inherent values. No wonder many have labelled this as a timeless classic!
The soft-hearted soldier that Ram is, the innocent letters from Sita Mahalakshmi, Ram’s wistfulness of no longer being an orphan, the princess’ dilemma on whether to reveal her true identity or not, Ram’s desperate cry to get an answer or a reason from Sita, the sudden fear for his own life which Ram gets on finally having Sita back with him, Sita’s pleas for help in rescuing Ram and finally, Ram’s plain acceptance of his fate – what an absolute intense emotional melange!
Being the music lover that I am, I just have to write a few lines about the lovely music too. The music all through, be it the songs or the background music, had traces of several already-heard-before tunes, albeit such soft and beautiful ones. It gelled so well with the movie and took the scenes to a different level altogether. Did you hear the Darbari Kanada with so much feel making an appearance now and then, especially during the gut-wrenching end of Ram?!
If it took me several days to get over the injustice meted out to Nambi Narayanan after watching Rocketry, it is going to take even more time for me to get over Ram’s fate in Sita Ramam! A movie which creates a long-lasting impact like this and has you rooting for the characters doesn’t come by often!