Ramayana, Hum Dono and Gudiya

Ramayana, Hum Dono and Gudiya
Ramayana, the story which supposedly tells humans what is an ideal life has a peculiar incident. When Sita returns from Lanka, Rama asks her to take the agni-pariksha to test her “purity”. Even after passing this test, Rama sends her off hearing some dhobi talking ill about Sita’s purity. This was in BCs.

Yesterday I watched the last scene of the dev anand starer Hum dono. From what I could make out from the last scene was this. There is an army major who is gets lost in the battle and also looses his one leg. But to the Indian army he is dead. His friend (who is lookwise ditto of this major, dev anand in double role) comes to tell this message (that the major is dead) to the major’s wife. But the major’s wife has some health problem and if the truth is told to her, she will die. So this friend is forced to act as her husband. In the end, the major returns to see that his wife is living with his friend. He is shocked. The friend explains him the scenario in which he had to act as hubby. He also explains that though they act as hubby and wife, in the real sense she is still his bhabi. To be precise they don’t have any physical relationship. After some talks both agree to meet in a temple. With the major hiding behind some pillar, the friend brings the wife (actually bhabi) to the temple. Friend asks what if, your hubby looses legs, eyes, arms etc, would she still love him. She says that she was never in love with her hubby’s jism but she always loved him irrespective of the looks. She finally meets her lame real hubby and ofcourse both live happily ever after like all movies. This was in 1960’s.

Most of you would have read about Gudiya case. Gudiya was married to an army jawan. This guy went missing in the battlefield and the Indian army declared him as dead. Gudiya married another guy and became pregnant. Now the 1st husband who is supposedly dead returns. He wants his wife back but without the kid in the stomach. He is ready to remarry her. This is 2004.

There are obvious similarities in these 3 cases.
• The wife is away from husband for a considerable amount of time.
• The wife stays with another male. (Enemy, friend and hubby respectively!!)
• All 3 did not know what was happening to their husbands. (Until Hanuman did his messenger job, in case 1)
• Nobody questions the males.
There are also obvious differences in these 3 cases.
• Sita was proven to have no physical relationship. (by none other than Agni)
• Major’s wife was not proven but accepted after some talking.
• Gudiya had physical relationship with a proof of it.
But the key difference is the mentality of the men. Men have changed. Rama could never accept Sita again. Major accepted his wife after knowing that she did not have relationship. Army jawan accepted Gudiya even after knowing that she was another person’s wife (I don’t know the reaction of her 2nd hubby). Though it is very obvious that these stories cannot be generalized, but this is a definte improvement. Men are going forward.