Small Ramlilas in Mumbai try to rival bigger ones from UP

It's nearly 9 pm. Inside a tube-lit room above a political party's office in Kalbadevi, 20 soon-to-be gods are sipping chai in plain clothes. Action begins when lord Ram, a garment shop salesman in acid-wash jeans passes off a stick for a bow and smiles as an elderly man kneels and clutches his right calf. Next, lord Meghnath, a bearded man in formals bounces in the air and beats his chest as he bellows in anger at Laxman, a second-year BCom student. Work has kept Raavan, an advocate from Saki Naka away this evening, so the director, a cricket coach in a black Polo T-shirt, steps in. He grabs Raavan's mantri, a silver-haired dhoti-clad man by the collar, releases him, forgets his line and then apologises: "I'm an emergency Raavan."

Evil laughter

, loud gestures and poetic Hindi lines translated from Awadhi verses of Tulsidas's

Ramcharitmanas

mark the post-work hours of the month leading up to Navratri for members of the 1961-born Shiv Shakti Kala Mandal as they prepare to disappear behind cakey make-up and ascend the stage at Cross Maidan for their annual Ramlila. Made up of milkmen, paanwallas, taximen, railway employees and migrant workers from UP who take nine days off work annually to inhabit the mythology of Ramayana at production budgets of Rs 3-lakh. This collective reflects the nature of many small Ramlila mandals across Mumbai whose crews now find themselves competing with the city's bigger mandals, whose Rs 20 lakh-worth affairs see professional Ramlila artistes from Ayodhya and Mathura who play gods all year round.

It's not just the scale though. Several things have changed in Mumbai's make-believe Lanka since 1952 when one Pandit Shobhnath Mishra--whom Churchgate's B Road is named after--gave Mumbai its first Ramlila in a bylane in Churchgate's Goa Street. "Quantum leap," is how Suresh Mishra, grandson of Shobhnath Mishra and owner of Sree Maharashtra Ramlila Mandal, Mumbai's oldest and biggest Ramlila mandal, describes these changes. Competition means that this printing press owner now raises upto Rs 20 lakh for the show as opposed to the earlier standard of Rs 2 to Rs 3 lakh. This is chiefly through goodwill as "no one wants to sponsor Ramlila probably because it is still a poor man's entertainment," says Suresh, who must also grease palms and jump through bureaucratic hoops for venue permissions now. Then, there are guest appearances by politicians which irk the purist in Sadhu Mishra--a tourist vehicle owner who has played many roles including women's characters since 1984.

None of this, though, diminishes the reverential aura of Ramlila that not only compels some actors to work for free but also draws upto 7000-a-day-strong audiences. "Some of them touch our feet when the curtains go up," says Kishori Shetye, a TV actress who plays Parvati. While women actors are not hard to find today ("I'm ready for any role," says homemaker Pratibha Agrawal, who is prepping for her big laugh as Surpanakha this year), there was a long period in Mumbai when male Ramlila actors had to play women characters--as is still the case in many parts in UP--because the stage was seen as corrupting. That was when Koliwada-based garment salesman Abhay Shukla, who now ascends the stage as Ram, had donned lipstick and doubled up as Sita and Manthra.

Apart from kids who are happy to play mythological monkeys as those are non-speaking roles, young actors are rare to find. However, some members of the third generation have even opened Facebook pages of Ramlila mandals though it's unclear if these translate into young crowds.

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