DNA’s Daniel Pinto talks to writer Vijayendra Mohanty and artist Vivek Goel, the creators of the comic book Ravanayan, which is a 10-part comic book series retelling of the Ramayana from the demon-king’s perspective.
Ravan is generally perceived as a doomed character whose vanity and arrogance was his own undoing. What aspect of this reviled figure justifies him having his own comic book mini-series?
Vijayendra Mohanty: The answer is in your question itself — because he is reviled. Common sense dictates that nobody can be doomed, completely undone, or deserving of utter revulsion. People always have reasons for the things they do, and even though those reasons may make little sense to others, they can be great driving forces for change.
Ravan is indeed remembered for the wrongs that he committed and we are not changing the nature of his acts in our story. We merely go behind the scenes and take an imaginative approach to explaining his reasons for doing the things he did.
If we find that Ravan is as much a child of circumstances as we are, our revulsion for him grows that much weaker and he seems like someone we might to know a bit more about. That is exactly what Ravanayan does.
Read the full interview here: Ravan revisited: Creators of demon king-based comic open up
