On the Ramayana

Hawkeye is writing a series of posts discussing the Ramayana and reviewing Ashok Banker’s Ramayana. You should start from the first post in the series to get the full flavor, including a comparison of Valmiki’s version with other versions.

There is a segment in Banker’s book, where Hanuman meets Rama for the first time, which left me very impressed. They get into a cultural-difference discussion and Hanuman is offended by Rama’s suggestion that Vanars and humans are similar. He argues that humans are barbaric and vanars are better because a Vanar female can choose to procreate with any male without her husband having any say in it. Hanuman is dumbfounded as to how a human male can have so much say in a human woman’s biological behavior. Hanuman is also offended when he is called a monkey. He questions Rama if humans can also be called monkeys just because they share the same ancestors as monkeys.