Last week, as I was walking through Kinari Bazaar in old Delhi, I noticed that my favourite Ram Lila supplies shop was looking different. When I’d visited it about a fortnight ago, it was full of wonderful wares such as strap-on monkey tails, vivid orange beards and tubes of make-up simply called “Pank Cake”. Weaponry of all sorts and in all its tinny splendour was hanging from the rafters. All around us were strung shiny necklaces, meant to be worn by regal queens and heavenly apsaras alike, while masks to adorn demons stood cheek by jowl.
Beady-eyed customers from Aligarh were sitting with the owner, haggling over the price of fake tiger skins. “We need 20, not one! You’d better give us a better rate for them!” said one. The owner murmured that nobody in the market could beat him on prices and that nobody else had such a wide range of Ram Lila costumes anyway — and then, plied his customers with tea and samosas. He said he had something special to show them, calling a salesman out. The man emerged, wearing a papier mache head of a bejewelled elephant. “Magnificent!” they cried, and ordered one.
The customers had turned out to be organisers of the Ram Lila of their locality, who came to the shop every couple of years to renew their props and costumes. They weren’t sure whether their Ram Lila had much of a future. “Today, children have access to much more sophisticated things on television and movies. So, I wonder how long we will be able to sustain this traditional form of entertainment,” one of them said.
I thought the Ram Lila shop was an anachronism too, but one that stood out like a strange, exotic jewel among shops catering to the wedding business. But how could it survive in the market with wares that were only so temporarily in demand? So, in the week before Dusshera, I dropped in again to find out.
The shop looked quite transformed. Ornate baskets meant for wedding giveaways were stacked on the floor. The weapons were still there, for as the salesman told me, bow-and-arrow sets sold all the way up to Diwali. Also, there were varieties of glittery door hangings that people liked to decorate their homes with during the festive season. “You must buy a set too,” said the salesman. “They are an auspicious way of inviting the goddess Lakshmi to your home!” The owner was still in conversation with some beady-eyed customers. They were traders busy to organise a nine-day Ram Lila, so they were just planning a day-long extravaganza on Dusshera.
I wondered what they sold once both these festivals were over. The salesman replied: “Thankfully, we’re a country of festivals. After Diwali, we gear up for Christmas, making plastic trees and their tinsel ornaments, Santa masks and stockings! Then, before Holi, we sell silly masks and wigs that people like to sport.” The year-round, they also stocked children’s fancy dresses, theatre costumes and wigs. “Our wigs are really lifelike,” he boasted. I looked at the orange hair and beard purported to be similar to sage Vishvamitra’s locks, and reserved judgment.
When I emerged from the shop into the bazaar, it felt as if I’d stepped out of some sort of a time warp. I turned to look at it, and didn’t see the tin swords, plastic trees and shoddy wigs — instead I saw relics of a simpler time when disbelief was easier to suspend and people like us easier to entertain.