Jai Shri Ram,” mutter two men as they walk into the Rama-Abhirama exhibition at the National Museum in Delhi.
The reflexive piety reminds me of the stories I’ve read of how people left coins in front of Raja Ravi Varma’s paintings of gods and goddesses when they were first allowed to see them in Baroda (now Vadodara). Here too, the entire exhibition occupies a grey area somewhere between the religious and the artistic, as it explores how Rama has been portrayed through Indian history through the lens of the navarasas — the nine emotions that Bharata Muni ...
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First Published: Sat, January 13 2018. 00:31 IST
