Let me ask you a simple question. Rank the following by the quality and scale of their living Ramayan tradition:
1. A city of your choice in India
2. Bali, Indonesia
3. Phnom Penh, Cambodia
4. Vientiane, Laos
5. Trinidad & Tobago
6. Fiji
Most Indians put their city first and then they immediately realize that its not the correct answer.
Bali is covered corner to corner with statues of Shri Ram, Hanumanji, Mata Sita and Jatayu. The Kecak dance retells the Ramayan every single evening as a living cultural act, under open skies, to paying audiences from around the world. Indonesia’s Prambanan Ramayan Ballet is a UNESCO Masterpiece of Intangible Heritage. This is happening in the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation. In Trinidad, in a village carved out of old sugarcane land at the edge of the Caribbean Sea, Ramlila has been performed continuously for over a hundred years. In Fiji, every settlement has its own Ramayan Mandali, a tradition going back 130 years.
Now back to your city or village in India, surely we have a Ramlila Maidan where we burn Ravan every October. And then we fold it up and go home.
Where is the event management ecosystem built around this tradition? The design hubs, the hospitality circuits, the curriculum that draws on the Ramayan for leadership and ethics the way Bali built an entire tourism economy around the Kecak? The country where Maharshi Valmiki first gifted this epic, is treating it as a seasonal ritual while the rest of the world turns it into a living civilisational asset.
BTW, this is not a religious question I am asking here, it is an hashtag#EduCulture question.
Also, I am not just pointing at the gap. There is a Ramlila that has been performed without interruption for 65 years, from India, at the world stage occasionally. I want to bring that story back into the conversation it deserves.
If you are building where culture meets economy, where heritage meets education, where hashtag#EduCulture is understood to be right solution for future of our kids, then please connect or point me to someone who cares.
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