Delhi’s Ramleela, now in its 65^th consecutive year, played to packed audiences in the capital through the Dussehra month of October. Originally enacted with a live orchestra in Delhi’s Feroz Shah Kotla grounds, Shriram Bharatiya Kala Kendra’s iconic production, now termed simply Ram, assumed a legendary hue. Creditably, it has been witnessed by most of India’s Prime Ministers.

Much has changed in the dance-drama over the decades, but much has also remained the same. The original script derived from Goswami Tulsidas’s Ramayan was rewritten in the mid-1990s in ‘khari boli’ to cater to a modern Delhi audience who could not fully comprehend the Awadhi dialect. With this came the necessity to recompose the music, to fit the new sahitya. The music of the over two-hour production had to be painstakingly re-recorded.

This was not so easy a task; the composing of music for a dance-drama production, where due consideration had to be given to the lyrics and movements, was something that many professional musicians 40 years ago had not experienced. Nor were they ready to take on a project that involved so much time and tweaking of the music to fit in with the movements. Thinking of appropriate music while the monkeys scampered or the golden deer enticed Sita in the forest, involved thinking out-of-the-box for a classical musician. Another concern was tuning music to a changed script; some thought it was sacrilegious to tamper with the original holy words of Tulsidas. Apparently, many senior classical musicians approached for the task refused. 

The final recording saw simultaneous recording in three studios, more than 400 pieces of music strung together, during a non-stop period of more than three months! Truly a herculean task -- sarodist Biswajit Roy Choudhury, who composed the music recalls, “I barely ever had lunch during those three months!”  About 120 musicians were roped in; an added concern was working with musicians who had studio recording experience and could also give uninterrupted time for days to record. The final new soundtrack recording came together in 1999. It involved the combined effort of several musicians, including vocalist Shanti Sharma and the recording expert – the late Jwala Prasad  (a part of dancer Uma Sharma’s team).  The vocalists included the late Shanti Sharma, Jitender from the Kathak Kendra and Indu Prakash.

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