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Sage Vishwamitra whisked away Raam and Laxman from the fond embrace of their father. And took them to the forest and taught them many good things of life.
And on their return journey, Vishwamitra slyly took an unscheduled layover at Mithila where an ad for Sita's eligible groom was on. And the Sage asked the brothers to go forth for a stroll on the Main Road while he finished his evening ablutions and prayers.
According to RKN, Sita was taking a stroll on her balcony and happened to see Raam and at once fell, not from the balcony but, in love. Miraculously at the same moment Raam also looked up and saw Sita and fell in love with her. This is somewhat rare in Telugu movies...generally the fall is one-sided in the beginning...otherwise no movie.
And, brimming with his surging love for Sita, Raam attempted his GRE which consisted in just lifting the bow of Lord Shivjee. He broke the bow into two halves.
Overkill...
Everyone clapped and a wedding was announced. Sita ought to have taken the broken bow as an ill omen. My mom would have done it, even now in her ripe age (91). For, the marriage turned out to be not altogether happy one...soon after the event, Raam had to go forth to the forests for 14 years. And then Sita got stolen. And on her recovery she was asked to take a chastity test by fire. Even after she cleared it gloriously, and returned to her hubby's place, she was abandoned by him in a forest...when she was carrying his progeny. Valmiki looked after her. Ultimately Raam found her in Valmiki Ashram and invited her to return to Ayodhaya with him. But..but...she was asked to once again take that combustion test as a prelim. She refused and ended her life in the bosom of her Mother Earth.
Sigh!
But the norms and mores of rulers appear to be quite different than the ruled...just ask our PM.
All this chitchat is by way of preface to the subject of wedding cards.
It is well-known that the wedding of Raam and Sita was heavenly...everyone attended it and the Devatas from the sky rejoiced and threw flowers on the wedded couple (instead of the rice smeared with haldi as we do in AP).
And I always wondered how the invitations to the royal wedding were sent. It appears all the kings of the neighborhood arrived and so they must have got the message well in advance. No need for smoke signals though...Raam was the contemporary of Valmiki who wrote all those 23,000 shloks in long hand. So literacy must have flourished during Raam's 'Raam Rajya' unlike Gandhijee's. Our literacy when we got our freedom at midnight was a sorry 12%. Wiki tells me that even now, after 60 odd years, India has the distinction of being the nation with the largest number of illiterates.
So the invitations must have been sent on silken scrolls with letters of gold.
Thereafter, by the time of my own royal marriage, wedding cards were got up on thin manifold paper (to save postage).
As you know I inherited (spiritually speaking) a fondness for perfection from my Ph D Guide, SDM. And my wedding cards were printed and distributed by my Father @ Gudur who retired by then and had poor eyesight (he had glaucoma). So I was too scared to look at the sample invitation card of my marriage sent to me at KGP by snail mail.
Instead, I got a few cards printed in English at the Chaitanyashram Press outside our campus:
http://gpsastry.blogspot.in/2011/11/gole-bazaar-1960s-printers.html
As you know well by now, I was running two loans with hefty EMIs then and had no spare cash to splurge on invitations. The 50 cards came out without any howlers...at least, no one pointed out any bloomer...this shows that few folks really READ the wedding cards they get...they just note the date and venue of the wedding and toss them into the recycle bin. Each card cost me Rs 2 (two only)...those days one dollar was just Rs 8 instead of Rs 61 today.
But towards my retirement in 2005 I got to see a wedding card which resembled the celestial wedding card of Raam and Sita...it was a silken foldable scroll stretched between two thin silver cylinders and the lettering was in pure gold...I was told.
I asked how much each card cost and was told Rs 5000 only.
I read it with SDM-Devotion and discovered 5 howlers in its English version...@ Rs 1000 each howler.
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Sage Vishwamitra whisked away Raam and Laxman from the fond embrace of their father. And took them to the forest and taught them many good things of life.
And on their return journey, Vishwamitra slyly took an unscheduled layover at Mithila where an ad for Sita's eligible groom was on. And the Sage asked the brothers to go forth for a stroll on the Main Road while he finished his evening ablutions and prayers.
According to RKN, Sita was taking a stroll on her balcony and happened to see Raam and at once fell, not from the balcony but, in love. Miraculously at the same moment Raam also looked up and saw Sita and fell in love with her. This is somewhat rare in Telugu movies...generally the fall is one-sided in the beginning...otherwise no movie.
And, brimming with his surging love for Sita, Raam attempted his GRE which consisted in just lifting the bow of Lord Shivjee. He broke the bow into two halves.
Overkill...
Everyone clapped and a wedding was announced. Sita ought to have taken the broken bow as an ill omen. My mom would have done it, even now in her ripe age (91). For, the marriage turned out to be not altogether happy one...soon after the event, Raam had to go forth to the forests for 14 years. And then Sita got stolen. And on her recovery she was asked to take a chastity test by fire. Even after she cleared it gloriously, and returned to her hubby's place, she was abandoned by him in a forest...when she was carrying his progeny. Valmiki looked after her. Ultimately Raam found her in Valmiki Ashram and invited her to return to Ayodhaya with him. But..but...she was asked to once again take that combustion test as a prelim. She refused and ended her life in the bosom of her Mother Earth.
Sigh!
But the norms and mores of rulers appear to be quite different than the ruled...just ask our PM.
All this chitchat is by way of preface to the subject of wedding cards.
It is well-known that the wedding of Raam and Sita was heavenly...everyone attended it and the Devatas from the sky rejoiced and threw flowers on the wedded couple (instead of the rice smeared with haldi as we do in AP).
And I always wondered how the invitations to the royal wedding were sent. It appears all the kings of the neighborhood arrived and so they must have got the message well in advance. No need for smoke signals though...Raam was the contemporary of Valmiki who wrote all those 23,000 shloks in long hand. So literacy must have flourished during Raam's 'Raam Rajya' unlike Gandhijee's. Our literacy when we got our freedom at midnight was a sorry 12%. Wiki tells me that even now, after 60 odd years, India has the distinction of being the nation with the largest number of illiterates.
So the invitations must have been sent on silken scrolls with letters of gold.
Thereafter, by the time of my own royal marriage, wedding cards were got up on thin manifold paper (to save postage).
As you know I inherited (spiritually speaking) a fondness for perfection from my Ph D Guide, SDM. And my wedding cards were printed and distributed by my Father @ Gudur who retired by then and had poor eyesight (he had glaucoma). So I was too scared to look at the sample invitation card of my marriage sent to me at KGP by snail mail.
Instead, I got a few cards printed in English at the Chaitanyashram Press outside our campus:
http://gpsastry.blogspot.in/2011/11/gole-bazaar-1960s-printers.html
As you know well by now, I was running two loans with hefty EMIs then and had no spare cash to splurge on invitations. The 50 cards came out without any howlers...at least, no one pointed out any bloomer...this shows that few folks really READ the wedding cards they get...they just note the date and venue of the wedding and toss them into the recycle bin. Each card cost me Rs 2 (two only)...those days one dollar was just Rs 8 instead of Rs 61 today.
But towards my retirement in 2005 I got to see a wedding card which resembled the celestial wedding card of Raam and Sita...it was a silken foldable scroll stretched between two thin silver cylinders and the lettering was in pure gold...I was told.
I asked how much each card cost and was told Rs 5000 only.
I read it with SDM-Devotion and discovered 5 howlers in its English version...@ Rs 1000 each howler.
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