A Song to Rama

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L Brogdon A song to Rama Songs can make one feel good, laugh or cry, they can even enrage anger. Songs can express any human characteristics, or unworldly situations. “We Are Not Your Monkey’s” (Pawar) was a song wrote about human hardship, humiliation and the struggle to regain humanity in India This song starts off with the invasion of the Supreme Being Rama and his men the Aryans, destroying the lives of the Indian people. First the God Hanuman, which the Indians worshiped and loved was belittled and called a monkey. Then the people too were tuned into a joke, being down sizes as “Demon, Low Castes, and Untouchables” (653) New laws were set, making the Indian people outcastes and slaves on their own land. Shambuka was one of the men mentioned in the song who tried to gain knowledge. This was unthinkable due to the new laws. “Untouchables” would not have the option to do or be anything but a manual laborer with no education. To keep the laws set, and the people living in fear, Rama had Shambuka beheaded. For years nothing changed the slaves continued to work with no profit for them. Rama continued to reap all the benefits of the workers. The song writer even goes as far as to ask Rama what his caste and religion was. The Hindu people believe that cattle are sacred animals with souls; to kill them is a sin. Rama was casting sin onto the Indians by making them kill the cattle for his shoes. The Indians also believed that with all things an offering is to be made to one or all the Gods. Without putting an offering out for the gods he was saying he himself was a god, or better than the gods. The song adds new twist with the creation of a new Constitution, created by a man who was never supposed to have the knowledge to do so. Dr. B.R. Ambedkar an “untouchable” (655:55) gave a new found hope to his people. However the poverty levels continued to grow.

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