I really enjoyed Shulman's "Bhavabhuti on Cruelty and Compassion". When I read the synopsis of the Ramayana in The Hindu World, while I enjoyed the mythology and story, I was never very sympathetic towards Rama. Perhaps it's the way Rama is portrayed or maybe it's simply because of my modern tastes, but I was never able to get over Rama's treatment of Sita. However, in Bhavabhuti's retelling of the epic, I finally felt something for Rama that wasn't general disinterest. The irony of Rama being forced to lose Sita immediately after saying, "Separation from you would be unbearable" (Shulman, 53), as well as the terrible guilt that floods Rama humanizes him and makes him (and the story itself) much more compelling, as opposed to the very stoic and seemingly uncaring character of Rama painted in Goldman and Golman's summary of the Ramayana. This humanistic quality of Rama is also explored by Shulman in his discussion of love, a discussion I particularly enjoyed reading. Shulman's final thoughts on how Bhavabhuti takes this metaphysical, extraordinary formulation of love and expresses it as so ultimately human was particularly beautiful, both on Bhavabhuti's and Shulman's part.
I also (admittedly) enjoyed how unsympathetic some of the characters were towards Rama, (such as Earth in the play-within-a-play described on page 59 of Shulman). I finally felt like the characters were saying what I'd been thinking when I had read the Ramayana previously. I also liked how Sita and Rama's roles are kind of reversed, with Rama proving his loyalty to Sita by having his substitute-wife be "the golden image of Sita", giving Sita reassurance of his loyalty for once (p. 67). This accountability for Rama's actions towards Sita is really just kind of satisfying. (Also, because I'm a sap I enjoyed how Sita, Rama, and their 2 sons were reunited at the end of the play. I'm sure there is something scholarly to say about this but really, true to my American identity, I just like happy endings).
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