Ravana Review March 2019 - First Impressions

Hi guys! Hope you guys are doing well? I wasn’t able to post much in the last few years and most of it is because I was way too lazy. In addition, to this I was only pretty much watching Deweni Inima on Tv so my blog turned into a full review site of that drama only. I did have some already written articles but sadly most of these dramas ended even before I had the time to post it on the blog.

Let’s just forget all of that! Today I am here to review a drama which I am sure will become a sensational hit in Sri Lanka. Yes, I am here to review Ravana. In case you guys are wondering why I took so long to review it, well I do have a valid reason. I just wanted to see whether it will be able to keep up with the hype and after about 27 episodes of it and my absolute obsession with the 8.30 weekend slot I was quite sure that this was the real DEAL!

Personally, I have always loved the character of Ravana in Ramayana simply because he was a very noble character and of course he was the King of Lanka. If you guys are wondering why I called the man who kidnapped Sita to be “noble” it’s because he had valid reasons for all the actions he did. He was of course the King of Lanka and was born to Yakka caste Princess Kaikesi and Rishi Vishwamuni. He was not born to be the  King of Lanka and he fought Rama only because Laxman physically disfigured his sister Shurpanakha.  It was basically a simple history and given the many TV Series on it, one could say Ravana is just another story where a villain is destroyed by the hero or where the dark is destroyed by the light or where evil is destroyed by good...blah…blah...blah… overall a boring plot line.

King Kuvera           Princess Rakha                             Prince,                       Prince Kalanewi,            Princess Pushpothkatha

However, this is not the case when it comes to TV Derana’s interpretation of Ravana. They basically made it a storyline where we get to see what kind of a background Ravana comes from. We get to see that he wasn’t merely a bad guy destroyed by yet another avatar of Lord Vishnu. We get to see the story from Ravana’s point of view and just maybe, he is the real hero after all.

Vishwamuni

When the first episode aired sometime ago I got to say that I did not have much hope for this drama. Most of the “big budget” historical TV series going on right now were more documentary than drama. I personally did not enjoy most of them and I have to say that I kind of skipped them. I always felt that I couldn’t connect with the characters and their goals or ambitions. In addition to this, since I do know a lot of the historical facts behind these dramas I kind of knew who won and who lost way before the series even started. I hate all the series on the rebellions against the British and the ones on the Kings basically because our writers did not seem to take any creative space when creating these dramas and they just ended up being “emotionless”.

All three productions following the same story line.

A good example of this is the recent movies on Kings of Sri Lanka. In all of them we get the Prince running away from the palace, living as a commoner in a village where the village head has two daughters and both fall in love with the Prince and only one gets to marry him..blah..blah..blah…  In the end of the day, a person not well versed in history of our country would believe that all our Kings ended up running away from home and getting married to a commoner. It’s what I basically call rubbish! Look King Dutu Gemunu was a King who believed in caste to a point where he disowned his only son because he married a low caste woman, so there is no bloody way that he would marry a commoner with no background! They were basically reproducing the same plot with different actors playing different Kings.

Given all this I felt Ravana would be another predictable historical drama which I would give up after 2 episodes. Well, I was wrong on this one. The first episode was just “meh” because it had all the background of the drama and I was a little bored but however this changed after I watched a few more episodes. So even though I knew the Ravana story before I watched this drama, TV Derana has taken what I would call a lot of creative space in order to create a masterpiece.  After a few episodes I have to say that it was like I was watching a high end Korean\English historical drama rather a Sri Lankan series.

King Sumali

In the first episode we are introduced to King Sumali, who is the Yakka King who was ousted by the traitor Kuvera a Deva caste man with the help of the Indian Kings. We get to learn that Sumali is hiding away in his hidden palace and we see a lot of ancient hi tech here which does go along with the Ravana story in general. We get to know his 3 sons and 4 daughters of whom I thought Kaikesi was to be the mother of Ravana. In addition, to this we learn that the third major caste is Naga who are pretty thirsty for power.

Naga caste Princess Malini and father Maninaga

A thing I loved about this episode in itself was the fact that they did not make these “castes” inhuman. This was what was usually done in Indian dramas where the castes are given inhuman powers and appearances. Here, we just learn that the Yakka have royal blood which meant they were the only ones who could be Kings of the nation. The Naga were merchants who traded with other nations. The Devas’ were another caste which lived among the Yakka’s. The only ones who did have powers were the Rishi’s who were basically a group of enlightened beings who had the power to foresee the future.

So at this point, we get the basic idea that Kuvera is the bad guy while Sumali is trying to fight a war which he would basically loose because the Indian forces were with Kuvera (who is just a puppet ruler). At this point the great sage Pulasthi makes an appearance to let Sumali know that all is not lost. He basically tells a prophecy about a powerful prince who would be born among the Yakka’s to one day become the nation’s rightful king. He states that in order for the Prince to be born one of Sumali’s  daughters need to be married to sage Vishwamuni  as the Prince needs to be born with both Yakka (for royal blood, fearlessness and strength) and Rishi blood (for knowledge).

This is where the story really gets interesting. So Pulasthi Rishi basically chooses Sumali’s daughter Rakha to be the chosen bride. So her destiny is to be Ravana’s mother or so we are told. However, here we see that even a sage who can see the future cannot really change destiny. The idea behind this “seeing the future” as I see it is very complex. At the point Pulasthi see’s Rakha, her destiny is to be a “prince’s mother” but she chooses a different path by running away from home in order to not marry Vishwamuni.

Rakha and Kaikesi at Vishwamuni Palace

This triggers a chain of reactions which connects to all the other episodes of the drama. So by running away from her destiny Rakha encounters Malini who claims to be a normal girl who came along to save Rakha and Kaikesi in the time of their need. However, she is a Naga princess who has come in order to find Vishwamuni so that she can give birth to a Naga Prince who would become King later on. So she gets to know where Vishwamuni lives simply by following Rakha. By doing this act Rakha causes evil to follow her which would later stop the birth of the Prince Ravana. So basically, she by her choices changed the future. So what the writers seem to tell us is that even the Rishi’s are not super humans. They can foresee the future because their minds are highly developed but it doesn’t mean that the future they foresee is basically going to come true.  So it can change with any choice the said characters make thus making the plot more complex.

Prince Kalanewi - Youngest son of Sumali, Student of Pulasthi Rishi, able to see the future

Later on as the drama develops, we get to learn that Kaikesi has a twin sister by the name of Pushpothkatha who is a warrior princess. In this instance we see that she is a princess who is not afraid of destiny nor her duty to her country. She is basically selfless and proud of her heritage. We also see that unlike Kaikesi who is a bit of a hothead, Pushpothkatha is someone who takes precise decisions with a calm mind. At this point we get to know that she is in fact to be the mother of Ravana, as she has the qualities necessary to be his mother.

Pushpothkatha Princess with Brother (Prince Kalanewi)

So what I understood here is that by the rash and selfish decision Rakha made she became not worthy of becoming Ravana’s mother (Pulasthi was not 100% sure Rakha was to be the mother, he too seemed to check her character in hardships before deciding on her ability to raise a strong King). One could argue that if she acted like she was told maybe she would have become the said mother. Even Vishwamuni notices through Rakha’s personality that she would not be Ravana’s mother.  As I said before this drama is complex and sometimes I feel you need to read between the lines in order to grasp what the writers seem to tell you.

Rakha and Vishwamuni

This is one of the main reasons I am interested in this drama. If you guys have watched Game of Thrones you guys would understand that the plot itself is complex and something’s you seem to think that you can predict are actually not what you think (Season 7 Jon Snow for example). So in the same way, Ravana is just not a one sided story which you can predict easily. It’s not basically “he is born- destined to be king- takes the throne” kind of story which is basically what Indian dramas show. As of now, I feel the drama is doing a great job keeping its audience at the edge of their seats.

Malini the Naga Princess

If you guys haven’t still given this drama a try I would seriously recommend you guys to do so. The actors are very talented, the sets are colourful and of course the stunts are pretty good. In addition to this, they have made use of our very own martial arts Angampora and its pretty dope! The plot itself is fast moving for a historical drama and since it is complex and not one- sided it keeps you awake till the next episode comes up. If you guys are not from Sri Lanka then you guys can watch all the episodes on the official TV Derana YouTube channel and they usually put up the latest episode straight after it’s done on local TV.

 And I got to say that there is way more to write about this drama than which I have already written. I can of course make no promises but there maybe two more parts for Ravana coming up on this blog and if you guys are interested please let me know down in the comments below.

*Disclaimer : I do not own any of the above images. They were available on the world wide web.