After agonizing over which Ramleela to go to we selected one at the Red Fort. We started towards the pandal we could see as we were coming out of the station. The red fort is closed for the duration of the festivities. 
The first reaction when we entered was excitement like a child. There were joy rides including multiple ferris wheels; all the mela food items – buddhi ke baal (cotton candy), bhel and variety of chaats, barfacha gola (chusky/shaved ice) were right there with the other fun stuff like photo studios, stalls where you could win gifts when you throw a ring or shoot correctly at a target, kid’s toys, haunted house. Basically all the things you experienced in a mela as a child or saw in an Indian movie where the brothers get separated. LOL.
After taking in all that was on offer, we made a beeline to the Ramleela stage. On both sides of the stage there were empty pandals, some with lavish seating. As we realized later, these were for the special guests of people who paid for these spaces as a contribution to the Ramleela.
No crowds at this time so we decided to explore the huge food pandal in front of the stage. The stalls were beautifully decorated with the ingredients of dishes they were selling and the chefs and servers were dressed impecabelly. The pandal had much more of a royal feel than the food stalls we saw coming in. We ended up trying three snacks – Mung chilla, Kulle, and paneer mava tikki. The green and mithi chatanis were nothing like I have had before. Thick and flavorful.
After PetPuja we decided to explore the rest of the mela beyond the stage. To our greatest surprise it was the LavKush Samiti’s mela right next door. The feel was much different than the New Dharmik Samiti mela we had just left behind. It was also bustling with people. The ramleela was going on the stage already. No royal looking food stall here though it was full of the same kind of stalls and food items but with slightly less fanfare. Both the Samiti’s had put up digital screens as backdrops but the Lavkush also had huge screens further away from the stage that showed multiple storylines going on the stage. When we arrived Ram and Lakshman were walking in the forest probably after Sita’s abduction. The song narrated their dialogue. For a long time they kept walking slowly across the stage so we decided to go back to the New Dharmik to see what was going on there.
We sat for a long time waiting for some movement. The volunteer kids dressed in white and khakis arrived, had their food, took their places for crowd control and tied the remaining food in a bag next to their posts to the bamboo poles dividing the seating zones. After a short chat with them we realized that the performance will not start for another hour and will go on past midnight. The weather was beautiful, the air smelled of grass clippings, so we decided to settle down with our main course of dinner.
Throngs of crowds started arriving and we realized it must be time. Ram, Lakshman, Sita arrived in a chariot and went round the huge seating area. Then Bharat and Shatrughna arrived and did their rounds. The story moved faster. The background music was sophisticated and more importantly the acting was really good and believable. As the scenes unfolded on the stage, newer characters came out to make their rounds through the crowds. We liked the imposing Ravan the most.
Ready to go home we reached the metro station and realized there was a third mela organized by the Shri Dharmik Samiti, next to the first one. We had missed it as we came out of the metro with our backs to their entrance. This one needed an Entry Pass. We were told this was the best one that we should not miss and some person at the door made sure that we got a pass. Visits to the three melas was a lesson in sociology and how the class differences play out. We realized that the placement matched exactly with the classes that gathered there Lavkush, New Dharmik, and Shri Dharmik – everybody going to the one that they felt most comfortable with. The look and feel was different; the security arrangements were different; some food items in Shri Dharmik weren’t available in others and some of the toys on offer showed the class divide as well. I wondered if the Shri Dharmik used the passes as a special effort to keep what they thought as the ‘rifraff’ out. It was quite an education about Delhi society.
Some interesting things we saw in Shri Dharmik Samiti’s mela:
As the weather gets better I am planning my walks to understand this city I call home now. Opened up the season with a pre-Durga Puja walk with Delhi By Foot yesterday. My way of trying to get a hang of how to do pandal hopping during Durga Puja, supposedly the thing to do in Delhi in October.
devayani tirthali 