Many Ramayanas, One Afternoon

 




Many Ramayanas, One Afternoon

We stood in line for a signature—
just ink, just a name on a page—
and yet it felt like waiting
at the edge of a great river.

Anand Neelakantan had spoken
of many Ramayanas,
many doors into the same sky,
and somehow, as we queued,
we became part of those retellings—
strangers stitched together
by stories older than memory.

We spoke of what we carried:
grandmothers’ voices,
fathers’ evening tales,
the fragments of Rama and Ravana
we had grown up with,
each a little different,
each somehow the same.

It was easy to talk—
liberating even—
as if in that half-hour
we stepped outside ourselves
and into the companionship
of shared myth.

No one knew anyone,
yet everyone belonged.
That is what stories do—
they dissolve the distance
between two hearts
standing in a queue.

And when at last
the book was signed,
ink settling into paper
like a blessing,
we smiled, nodded,
and drifted away—
carrying with us
not a name,
but a moment of quiet togetherness.

A small pilgrimage,
a brief fellowship,
many Ramayanas,
one afternoon.

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