Before putting Valmiki and his great epic in the dock, one ought to read the Ramayana on its own terms. AI generated image In contemporary discourse the world seems so terribly patriarchal that finding anything outside patriarchy has become almost impossible. The epics we read are patriarchal, the families we live in are patriarchal, Facebook is patriarchal, politics is patriarchal, and apparently even South Indian cinema is a patriarchal factory. Trump? Patriarchal. Social m

To capture Valmiki’s wonder on screen, filmmakers must look beyond the great battle and to the poignant love between Sita and Rama. Yugo Sako’s 'Ramayana, The Legend of Prince Rama' came closest to ciematically capturing the tenderness of Sita and Rama’s life in Panchavati. Is there a key to unlock, simultaneously, the poetic beauty as well as the spiritual depth of Valmiki’s Ramayana, for the purpose of turning the epic Itihasa poem into a beautiful cine matic adaptation? So