Jai Sri Rama
His Rama is the devotee of dharma whose story has been told by grandparents to their grandchildren, who in turn heard it from their grandparents. In spite of being written in the language of the twenty-first century, I doubt that emotionally or spiritually there is little to separate the Rama who walks the pages of these six books as he who was first immortalized in formal words by the sage thief Valmiki three thousand years earlier.
I can offer no proof of this, not being steeped in the culture or the history of these books or the people they speak to the most directly; I am obviously no expert on these matters. All I can do is report on how they have moved me and increased my understanding of the culture I knew so little of before reading these offerings.
So says Richard Marcus about Ashok Banker's interpretation of the Ramayana. I can't comment either, having not read Banker's butchery version nor a translation of the original, but rparvaaz has been less than impressed with Banker's research.
The pain continues over at Blogcritics.