Raavan, The Noble Enemy: The Postmodern Deconstruction Of Raavan In The War Of Lanka

Abstract

Amish Tripathi is one of India's most popular, bestselling, and contemporary writers. His writings are postmodern, blending myth and history with scientific and philosophical inquiry. His most popular works, The Shiva Trilogy and The RamChandra Series, can be read as absolute postmodern texts because they display the characteristics of postmodernism. Both texts reject the grand narrative, adopting multiple narratives and the rejection of chronology. The Ram Chandra Series blurs the boundaries between myth and history, heroism and villainy. The reinterpretation of the epic story of Ramayana provides a postmodern reading through the lens that humanizes gods and rationalizes the spiritual, compelling the readers to reconsider the cultural certainties and inherited truths. This paper examines Amish Tripathi's postmodern retelling of the Ramayana and demonstrates how Raavan transcends the straightforward hero–villain binary found in conventional retellings. Tripathi presents Raavan as a "noble enemy"—a person whose moral shortcomings are balanced by his virtues.