Sachet Mehta’s Post

𝗧𝗵𝗿𝗲𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗮 𝗛𝗮𝗹𝗳 𝗛𝗼𝘂𝗿𝘀 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗥𝗮𝘃𝗮𝗻 Three and a half hours. That’s how long it took for mythology to stop behaving like mythology and start behaving like truth. 𝘏𝘢𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘙𝘢𝘮 began like every other cultural evening: polite lights, polished introductions, phones going dark in pockets. None of us came prepared to be interrogated. By the second hour, applause had started to feel like bad manners. By the third, even the sound of breathing seemed to interrupt something sacred. And then Ashutosh Rana’s Ravan wounded, regal, incandescent looked at Laxman and said, “अहंकार चाहे सत्ता का हो या सौंदर्य का…” The line wasn’t dialogue. It was diagnosis. He wasn’t speaking to Laxman. He was speaking to anyone who’s ever mistaken knowledge for wisdom which is to say, everyone climbing something. He called out the most admired disease of our time: ego dressed as enlightenment. The kind that smiles at seminars, reads Gita quotes, donates during Diwali and still believes it’s the only one who truly “gets it.” I felt seen, and not in the flattering way. Then came the sentence that re-wired the room: “शत्रु तिरस्कार का नहीं, नमस्कार का पात्र होता है।” The enemy, he said, deserves a bow. Because only an adversary has the decency to wake us up. Every critic, every rival, every inconvenient voice suddenly they weren’t irritants, they were unpaid mentors. 𝗠𝗮𝘆𝗯𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝘄𝗵𝗼 𝗯𝗹𝗼𝗰𝗸 𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗽𝗮𝘁𝗵 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗼𝗻𝗲𝘀 𝘀𝗮𝘃𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘂𝘀 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝘀𝗺𝗮𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗿 𝗱𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀. He told Laxman to be useful, not important. That line landed like a reprimand to an entire generation obsessed with visibility. We’ve spent years perfecting how to 𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘬 purposeful never how to 𝘣𝘦 useful. When the curtain finally fell, the audience didn’t clap; it exhaled. Something had shifted. Ravan hadn’t been defeated; he had simply stepped off the stage and taken residence in us the articulate, self-aware, mildly smug generation that mistakes moral vocabulary for moral growth. Three and a half hours. That’s all it took for a villain to reclaim his genius, for a demon to deliver a sermon on humility, and for silence - 𝗵𝗲𝗮𝘃𝘆, 𝗵𝗼𝗹𝘆 𝘀𝗶𝗹𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 - to feel wiser than any applause.