The Shadows of Ramayana: Ressurecting Childhood Gods

The shadow puppets I made to resurrect my childhood gods.

The story was as old as the Ganga, as ancient as the Himalaya. I first heard it as a kid, sitting on the waxy, clammy floor of a Hindu temple. It was mid-November in Rangoon, the time for Diwali. The candlelit hall was draped in marigolds and mogras, in braided garlands of yellow and white. From the altars on the wall, Kali with her fanged grin, Shiva in his dancing pose, and Ganesh with its half-coiled elephant trunk presided over us. On the stage before us, another group of gods appeared, ushered in by a flourish of cymbals and gongs. These were Burmese dancers outfitted with embroidered shirts and pearl-lined headdresses, getting ready to reenact the epic adventures of a prince in exile, a princess in captivity, and monkeys and demons with magical power. When the flames flickered, the stoic figures on the wall came to life, casting their long shadows over the actors. Sometimes the dancers' shadows and the gods' moved in synchronicity. Sometimes they clashed. That was how I first heard the story of Rama.

Last week, when I got wind of Story Time, an intimate storytelling session organized by my neighbors, I began thinking of those dancing shadows from my childhood. I hatched a plan to bring the gods from my Burmese past, my previous incarnation, to San Francisco's fog-dusted Inner Sunset district, my present home.

For the next three nights, I pored over websites about Wayang, Javanese shadow puppets. Then I began sketching my own simplified versions of the characters from Ramayana, loosely based on the Javanese versions I found online. A few hours of struggles with an X-Acto knife, scissors, and cardboards produced my cast, with a dramatically reduced number of gods. I had to trim Valmiki's original narrative--told in 24,000 verses, 7 chapters, 500 cantos--to 6 pages of dialogs, for an estimated 15-minute performance. In doing so, I had to bid farewell to Lakshmana, Rama's faithful brother; Vibhishana, a demon with a conscience; Jatayu, a mythical bird; and a host of other beloved characters. I confined my story to the primary cast of four: Prince Rama, Princess Sita, Demon King Ravana, and Monkey King Hanuman.

A drastically reduced cast for my Ramayana.

Since I'd always heard the story of Rama with orchestral refrains, I recruited my musicologist friend Rick Heizman to provide accompaniment. Aside from sending him a script of my story, I did nothing to rehearse. I trusted in his improvisation skills to carry me--and my puppets--through the performance. He showed up with an Indian oud and a series of gongs. This was just a small fraction of the exotic collection he kept in his garage. He was virtually a one-man orchestra.

As show time approached, I spotted in the audience potential voice actors. Tito, a bouncy boy, was perfect for the role of mischievous Hanuman. And Yasmine, a girl in red pajamas clutching a stuffed teddy, had the delicacy of Sita.

"Would you like to be the voices of two characters?" I asked them.

Yasmine nodded enthusiastically, once she heard she was to be a princess. Tito was less sure about being a monkey. But the fact that his character had magical power sealed the deal.

Yesterday, at roughly 9:45 PM (way past Tito and Yasmine's bedtime), Rick struck a chord on the oud to open the show. Then the community hall at St. John's Church went dark, the candles flickered, and the gods from my past came back to life.

Me and my shadows, we kept the small audience transfixed through Sita's kidnapping, Hanuman's rescue, and the face-off between Rama and Ravana. Tito nearly missed his cue because he was engrossed in Hanuman's aerial flight. Rick's iPhone-powered sound effects (interspersed between his live music) added chirping birds to the forest scene and the twangs of bowstrings in the final battle.

The shadows from a Hindu temple followed me to a church in San Francisco. They were none the worse for wear, despite their 20-year journey across time and space. The story of Rama was just as spellbinding to Tito and Yasmine as it was to the 9-year-old kid I once was.

Here's the promo video clip I put together to announce the shadow puppet show: