Each year around this time, Ramleela is enacted all across the country during Navratri. This year, the pandemic has dampened the spirit of the festival. But you can read & listen to tales of Ramayana on your phone.
IIT alumnus Bhuwan Arora, with the help of a team of 25 college students from across the country, has developed mobile application – The Ramayana– an alternative to hear or read tales from the epic Ramayana safely at one’s home.
Developed over a period of 1.5 months, the app has referred to the original texts by Valmiki and Tulsidas for the stories.
Dubbed as an amalgamation of modern technology and Indian tradition, TheRamayana is a virtual museum of over 350 written and audio tales from the Indian epic. Users can access the tales in both English and Hindi.
“It is a technological product that is deeply immersed in culture also. Each story is linked to the location where it takes place, starting from Ayodhya, covering the entire Ramvanvas. Over 100 locations from the Indian subcontinent have been mapped,” said project manager of the application, Brinda Singh.
About the aim of the application, the founder said that the team wanted people to be informed about the epic so that they can form an unbiased viewpoint of the same.
“No scripture is good or bad, it’s the value system that restricts its beauty and essence,” said the 30-year-old entrepreneur.
“With changing times, it’s important to adapt to new value systems by representing the richness of such scriptures from an unbiased point of view, in ways that the current generation relates with,” he added.
The team further wishes to expand to other scriptures belonging to different religions practised in the Indian subcontinent. “It is a beginning but we would like to expand to other epics. Ramayana is a major Hindu text but we would like to cover other religions also. There are lots of misconceptions about other scriptures It is a step to educate people about the ancient scriptures like Ramayana, Quran, Bhagavad Gita, Bible,” said Brinda Singh.
