Banawaas in Bangalore
When Ram breaks the news of his exile to the modern Sita, she is not too happy. She is practically concerned about the fact that with so much of deforestation and Maoist unrest in the forest areas, exile in the forests (banwaas) is going to be lots tougher than it was in the ancient times.
After much deliberation they chose to settle in Bangalore for their exile from Dasratha’s capital. On reaching in Bangalore by train in Sleeper Class as he is allowed to in his exile, Rama hires an apartment in BTM Layout and takes up a job in a Call Center in Electronics City. Lakshaman is still on the hunt for his job and running around various placement agencies in the city. At the end of the day, he reaches Ram’s office and they travel together back home by bus.
Sita takes a good liking for Bangalore. She likes the weather and friendly neighbors. Over time though she begins to feel a little bored as lots of her women neighbors come back late from office or are busy watching television serials during the day and also playing out some of the snobbery, greed, selfishness and bitchiness that they see on television in real life. Back home in the Capital City, she had good company where she would engage in cooking, kitchen gardening and some hand crafts. To pass her time in “busy” Bangalore, she too begins to feel the need for a television.
Ram on the other hand is still the idealist, the maryada purushottam even in these modern times, and sticks to it. There is lots of peer pressure on him to buy a private car, but he is not swayed as he is fully aware that counter-intuitively every one suffers if people keep buying cars and running them with empty seats. That’s a root cause of the distress and frenzy in the city due to traffic congestion and vehicular pollution. Yet, the pressure mounts up when his juniors at the Call Center too buy a car of their own. Even Lakshaman gets swayed for a while but realizes his mistake and fully supports his elder brother.
Surpanakha lures Rama with her swanky SX4 Car
In the modern time, Surpanakha takes back her birth name of Meenakshi. She spots the handsome and dignified Rama standing at the bus stop, waiting to return home. She swirls and swerves her car in front of Ram ,but he is unmoved. A few days later while Ram is in a hurry to return home,to tend to an ailing Sita,he accepts a lift from Meenakshi. On the way, they pick up Lakshman and keep moving.
Meenakshi, smitten by his youthful good looks, proposed to Ram. He, however, spurned her advances, telling her that he was devoted to his wife, Sita, and that he would never take another wife. Ram then slyly suggested that she approach his younger brother, Lakshmana, with her proposition.
Lakshmana reacted in a similar manner, snubbing Meenakshi and telling her that she was not what he desired in a wife. Realizing eventually that the brothers were making fun of her, the humiliated and jealous Meenakshi swore to take revenge. She found out about Ram’s place and went over to threaten Sita and told her to back off or pay the price. Sita immediately called up Lakshman, who intervened and threw her out of the house. This was the last nail in the coffin for Meenakshi.
As she walks towards her car hurling abuses at Sita, Lakshman follows her to her car. He picks up an iron rod nearby and smashes the windscreen of the swanky car as Surpanakha vrooms away noisily scaring away all the passers by and children playing on the roadside.
Sita’s Virtual Harana (Captivity)
She drives straight to her brother Ravana’s palatial bungalow in Jorbagh. She hurriedly recounts her experiences and goads Ravana to immediately take action.
Ravana is a media baron and produces television serials. He stays in a palatial bungalow in Jorbagh in New Delhi. He calls in his counsel and advisors for a boardroom meeting. After much hard headed thinking they rule out the ancient trick of sending a golden deer. The concerns are that the deer could in no way reach Sita’s seventh floor residence passing all the security at the apartment.
So, the scheming Ravana plots for a virtual captivity for Sita by getting her addicted to television serials. So, he at once launches a TV serial called Big Loss 5 and announces a lucky draw. He then manipulates the lucky draw to offer the latest brand of television set at Sita’s mobile number.
Sita who by now was already beginning to feel lonely in her apartment get’s allured to the offer and asks Ram to get the gift offer television set from the showroom. While Ram is away, Lakshman thinks aloud with Sita about the new television soap serials which were spoiling people’s relationships and eating away people’s time. Such that there was even less time or willingness to engage socially and make people even lonelier as a result. He recollects the events of the earlier times and draws a Lakshman Rekha by advising Sita not to watch certain serials like Big Loss 5 and Kuchh To Log KKarenge, which he noticed were advertised all over the city. The promotional for Big Loss 5 also appears on national news channels that Sita watches and is convinced that it must be good, to appear on national news channels.
She decides to check out the serial and after watching a few episodes, she gets hooked to it. The scheming media baron Ravana thus succeeds in her plan of the virtual captivity of Sita and thus wrecks her revenge. He even now plans to invite Sita for Big Loss 6.
Lakshman faints from exertion and junk food
Lakshman who is still hunting for a job in Bangalore, comes home early tired and exhausted. He greets Sita and asks if there is some food to eat. While watching her favorite serial, Sita who would usually get up and offer some sweets and water to Lakshman, continues watching the serial. She shouts from the TV room, asking Lakshman to take some cold water from the fridge and some potato chips. She tells him that if she is even more hungry, he should take out a pack of 2-minute Fraggi noodles from the kitchen and cook it by himself.
Lakshman has already been feeling sick of eating so much of junk food when he is outside home. He is right now too shocked at Sita’s behavior and faints out of depression. Sita immediately calls up Rama from her mobile phone. Rama takes an early leave from his office and also calls up Dr. Jambavant Saxena to visit Lakshman at his house immediately.
Upon checking Lakshman’s health and carefully studies the overall situation. He recommends that to revive Lakshman’s health and to help him recover from his depression, Rama must ask the TV broadcasters to play Sanjeev Kapur’s tasty and healthy recipes. Once Sita watches them on television and makes those dishes for Lakshman, he should be fine once again.
Hanumaan is thus assigned the task of finding out Sanjeev Kapur and asking him to appear on a TV show. He is further directed that he should visit various TV studios and wherever he spots pictures of tasty and healthy food or smells them, he should know that Sanjeev Kapur must be around.
After much hunting of studios after studios, Hanumaan discovers one as he was directed and not sure who Sanjeev Kapur is picks up the entire studio and flies it back to near Ram’s apartment. Sita could now watch LIVE the food show by Sanjeev Kapur. Lakshman is back to the pink of health.
Ram’s resolve to save the society from dependency on cars and socially damaging TV serials
Ram is quite concerned about this whole episode. So, he writes letters, files Public Interest Litigation to stop the broadcasting of serials such as Big Loss 5 and proposes that TV serial producers should also be brought under Anna Hazaare’s Lokpal Bill. He also files an RTI application to get the details about who is funding these serials.
He then meets up with the TV producers, censor boards, leaders and eminent social workers to garner support for his cause.
After 3 months, when no action is taken Ram calls up Hanumaan and asks him to prepare the Vaanar Sena to destroy the new Lanka of TV channels. He personally leads the attack against the producers of Big Loss 5 and kills Ravana, the media baron.
Sita upon learning about the truth stops watching Big Loss 5. She hears about a new group who are working on a new idea called Rubanisation. She finds out from her Facebook account about Rubanite volunteers who are creating awareness for urban gardening in her locality. This also rekindles her old passion in farming when she was a school kid, learning the skills from her father.
So, instead of watching serials, Sita now organizes her neighbors to grow vegetables in small and large pieces of land in her apartment complex. They collects old tubs, buckets, cement tanks etc. and start gardening. One group would collect the kitchen waste and compost it. Another group would water the plants. Within months, the apartment community would share the vegetables amongst themselves and sell off the surplus produce.
Inspired by Ram’s idealism to use public transport many of his neighbors sold off cars or put off the idea of buying new cars. Instead they decided to use public transport or to car pool to their workplace and also for social trips. This also meant that more space was available in the neighborhood for urban gardening.
By the time Rama’s 14 year exile in Bangalore ends, the city is now self-sufficient in vegetables and even some fruits that are grown locally and are also free of chemicals and pesticides. The traffic situation is much better as few people own cars and those who do, share and car pool. Bangalore now consists of 70 Ruban Settlements of 1 km. length in diameter. The lakes and greenery are restored to their past glory and the city is naturally air-conditioned once again.
Ram Rajya had already arrived thru’ the Rubanisation model, even before Rama returned to the Capital City from his exile.
