Delhi Ramlila : Keeping the tradition alive for seven decades

Shriram Bharatiya Kala Kendra’s Ramlila draws audience who revere performers, take selfies. The 67-yr-old annual show has had an uninterrupted show, running to full-houses, even during COVID. Producer-director Shobha Deepak Singh, 80, has been staging it since 1969. Her mother launched it in 1957. From using bamboo chips to bubble gum, they've experimented. Raj Kumar Sharma and footballer Swapan Majumdar, antagonists on stage as Rama & Ravana, have been performing together for 30 yrs. Even today, they get nervous before each show.

As the Ramlila by the artists of the Shriram Bharatiya Kala Kendra (SBKK) drew to a close on Sunday evening, many members from the 650-strong audience removed their footwear in reverence. They waited their turn to take selfies with the cast after the two-and-a-half-hour-long show. In the cacophony of requests for autographs and photographs, and chants of Jai Siya Ram, many fell at the feet of the performers who played the main characters in the Ramayana.

The annual dance-drama, that runs to full-houses, has been staged for the past 67 years, even during COVID.

The show, held on the lawns of SBKK on Copernicus Marg, is staged every year in the three weeks between Dussehra and Diwali, and attracts people from outside the city too. “It is our annual family outing,” said a visitor from Meerut, who has been coming with his wife and son for 19 years.

At the last performance this year, producer-director Shobha Deepak Singh, in a wheelchair with a nasal cannula for oxygen, graciously acknowledges the applause. “My mind is already working on the changes in the 2024 show,” she said. “Every year I come for every show to motivate the team. Sometimes I also give finishing touches to their make-up,” said the 80-year-old.

Her mother, Sumitra Charat Ram, had started SBKK in 1952, and launched the Ramlila in 1957. “I would sit through the rehearsals with my mother in the basement of our house on Kasturba Gandhi Marg, where Mrs. Indira Gandhi would also join us often. Pt. Nehru came to inaugurate the first show held at Feroze Shah Kotla grounds,” she remembers, adding that she took it on from 1969.

From using bamboo chips for ornaments and putting bubble gum on the demon Surpanakha’s nose to make it look raw, they have experimented and come a long way. “In my childhood I used to watch the nukkad Ramlila. I saw SBKK’s extravagant production first in 2000. Each year it is mesmerising,” said Veena Tanwar, who has watched the show for 25 years now.

Backstage, Rama and Ravana, antagonists onstage, got a loud cheer: this year marks 30 years of their performance together. Swapan Majumdar, 43, who plays Ravan says he was a football player who used to go to Ambedkar stadium to practise every evening, but would also hang out at SBKK, where Raj Kumar Sharma was learning dance. “In early 90s we were neighbours in Dayalpur in north-east Delhi,” says Mr. Majumdar.