Explaining Seethaiyin Raman to a 6 year old

Saw a message from my cousin that his 6 year old daughter is confused between the Ramayana she was told by elders at home and what she watched on TV as Seethaiyin Raman (Siya Ke Ram in Hindi). My little niece wanted to understand the difference and also the reason behind it. The parent, my cousin wasn't very clear as to how he should explain the difference and he wasn't sure why there were differences in the first place.

So I embarked on a two step journey

1. To explain the differences to my little niece the way she would understand. Something that would (close to) convince her young inquisitive mind and also be truthful. I also didn't want to go the US & THEM route that the usual Western interpretation of Indian history goes on as, so I wanted to very subtly highlight the difference and then let the kid take a call
2. To explain why Seethaiyin Raman (Siya Ke Ram) is poisonous for anyone in the long run

In this post we will look at the first part where I explain Seethaiyin Raman to my 6 year old niece. The idea here is to get the parents, my cousin or his wife read this out for my niece so that she understands things better (so that the parents explain the difficult words for a 6 year old) like "Ancestors" etc..

BTW, you will come across two characters (which you might not be aware of... I mean, non Ramayana characters), they are 

1. Karthik: My cousin who lives in Canada
2. Amrita: My little niece, Karthik's 6 year old daughter

----The post for Amrita----

Ramayana is a Purana (Puranam in Tamil).

Puranam means old, a Purana means something that describes what happened in olden days, long long ago in a form you will understand, said like a story that even a little girl like you will love and understand.

How will you understand it better ?

If I write 200 pages and give it to you asking you to read it OR if it is told like a nice story ? Like a Hare & a Tortoise !!

Now, if something has happened long ago, like Ramayana how would you want to tell the story ?

Would you want to tell it as it was told by our ancestors (grandfather’s grandfather’s grandfather’s grandfather and so on…)

OR

Would you add your own story and tell it ?

For example, would it be good if you say…

Rama & Sita were getting ready to leave, to go to the forest. The whole of Ayodhya was sad, they were crying because their beloved Rama & Sita were going to go to the forest. Appa was watching Cricket on TV when Rama & Sita said goodbye and I was playing with my whiteboard, drawing pictures. And Rama & Sita were gone.

If I tell you that this is the correct Ramayana and put it on TV.

Would you believe it ?

Would it be nice to see a Ramayana with Karthik & Amrita as two characters there ?

So, you need to ask yourself a question.

Is Ramayana a story ?

If you ask me, I will tell you it is NOT.

It is something that happened long long ago.

In an age called Treta Yuga.

Heard about Ice Age (nice movie, right ?).

Like the Ice age they show in the movie, the age of the earth can be divided into 4 Yugas (this is for real !!). By the way, we live in the 4^th part. This is called Kali Yuga.

The second part of the age of earth was Treta Yuga and that is when Rama lived.

Did you know ? The Treta Yuga part was more than a million years !!

Ramayana tells you what happened to Rama, how he lived and all that.

So Ramayana is actually like me reading a scrapbook you made during your summer vacation to understand how you enjoyed your vacation.  Cool, right ?

Now that you understand a bit of what Ramayana is. Let us see what Seethaiyin Raman is…

Seethaiyin Raman is like putting Appa, Amma, Amrita & everyone in Ramayana and making it a nice story that everyone would watch on TV.

You do many changes to the original Ramayana and make it a STORY, like the Hare & a Tortoise.

Not good, right ?

Ask Appa to show you the Ramayana they did in Hindi & showed in a TV channel called Doordarshan in India. This was shown when Appa was a small kid like you, may be smaller than you !!

That, Amrita will get you understand Ramayana a little better. And yes, it shows Ramayana without adding any extra stories.

God Bless !!