Original He-Man— inflated
Sai R. Vaidyanathan
Overstretched, I would say. Tulsidas' Hanuman Chalisa is a small booklet that fits into my shirt pocket, but Devdutt Pattanaik's version is 170 pages long.
People who are familiar with the original Hanuman Chalisa would have found many out of the 40 verses so easy that no elaboration is required for those, but Pattanaik has explained all verses.
Using Hinduism's most popular prayer, Pattanaik has gone on to tell many tales about the original He-Man. But as both the Ramayana and Hanuman are well known, most Hindus — courtesy Ramlilas — know most of what has been given in this book about the mighty hero.
Usually, Pattanaik's works are full of instances. Their sheer number makes up for the works' lack of depth.
Perhaps, the author — by design — does not delve deep into Puranic tales as it might complicate the narration. That, in turn, could hit his readership. But in My Hanuman Chalisa, Pattanaik could have either trimmed the volume or attached some historical or scientific value to the protagonist's adventures. A seeker is left wanting more, as he knows there is a lot more below the surface.
The book is easy to read and the author has illustrated it beautifully with 50 of his own sketches.
No story of Hanuman can be complete without Lord Rama. But the son of Vayu is not just his devotee. The killing of Ahiravana "by sprouting four extra heads...transforms him into an independent god in his own right...for he takes initiative and decisions on his own, and not instructions from Ram."
And as Hanuman outlives Lord Rama, he appears in the times of Lord Krishna, Vishnu's next incarnation, too. The mighty Vaanara not only destroys the arrogance of Pandava princes Bhima and Arjuna during their exile, but also takes part in the Mahabharata war atop Arjuna's chariot. This is mentioned in the explanation for verse 29.
No gaps are too big for Hanuman to bridge. With the ease that he jumped across to Lanka, he acts as a link between Rama and Krishna. Then,
as a form of Shiva serving Vishnu's incarnation, he makes his mark
in the Hindu Trinity. The book also mentions the Bada Mangal festival
in Lucknow in which Muslims provide "water to the long queues of (Hindu) devotees".
The action hero is not all muscle. He has grey matter too. This comes out crisply in verse 9 where he approaches Sita in Ravana's Ashoka vatika as a small monkey in order not to frighten her and then, assumes the mammoth form to set Lanka afire.
To widen his appeal among the fairer gender, the macho Hanuman has a wife in a temple in Hyderabad and a son in Patala. At a shrine in Chhattisgarh, "he wears a nose-ring to appear like the Goddess".
How the Hanuman Chalisa came to be penned finds mention in the end. On his refusal to perform miracles, Akbar put Tulsidas in jail where he wrote this 40-verse work. Then, a group of monkeys attacked Agra and relented only when the saint was freed.
Just as the Vaanara army came to the writer's aid, may Hanuman's name make the readers' "diseases and pain vanish" as mentions verse 25.
