Some books shake the ground beneath them. Aubrey Menen’s 'Rama Retold' did exactly that in 1954 when it dared to poke fun at one of India’s most sacred epics. Imagine someone rewriting the Bible and making Jesus a confused but well-meaning fellow, or retelling an Iliad where Achilles is just a really angry guy with bad impulse control. That’s what Menen did to the Ramayana — and India promptly banned it. Why? Because Menen didn’t just tell the Ramayana differently. He laughed at it. And he invited us to laugh along with him.
Aubrey Menen was never going to fit neatly into any box. Born in 1912 to an Irish mother and a Malayali father, he was neither fully British nor fully Indian. He spent his life moving between cultures, always questioning, always refusing to take anything at face value. He had the sharp wit of an outsider — someone who could see the absurdity of the world because he had never quite belonged to any one part of it.
Menen was a storyteller who believed that myths, even the most sacred ones, should be questioned. And in Rama Retold, he did more than question the Ramayana. He took it apart, rewrote it, and held it up like a funhouse mirror to show us the contradictions we often ignore.
The Ramayana is one of India’s oldest and most revered epics, a grand tale of love, exile, war, and virtue. Rama is the ideal king, Sita the devoted wife, and Ravana the ten-headed villain who must be defeated. That’s how we all hear it.
But in Rama Retold, Rama is not a flawless hero. He's a decent man, sure, but he's also a person who often follows rules blindly and doesn’t always think for himself. The book suggests that Rama is a man so wrapped up in duty that he never questions the absurdity of his own situation.
Then there’s Sita. In traditional tellings, she’s the picture of patience, purity, and suffering. Menen’s Sita, though, is sharp, independent, and — brace yourself — not entirely opposed to Ravana. Instead of being kidnapped, she chooses to go to Lanka. She’s intrigued by this powerful king who treats her like an equal. It’s a small change, but it completely rewires the moral universe of the Ramayana. If Sita isn’t just a helpless captive, then maybe Ravana isn’t pure evil. And if Ravana isn’t pure evil, then maybe the Ramayana isn’t a simple story of good versus bad after all.
No wonder the book was banned.
India had just become independent when Rama Retold was published. It was a time of nation-building, a moment when everything from food to language to history was being redefined. The Ramayana was part of the foundation of India’s cultural identity.
When Menen’s book came out, it upset all the right (or wrong) people. C. Rajagopalachari, an influential politician and writer, dismissed it as “pure nonsense”. Journalists called it an “abomination”. The Indian government decided the book was so dangerous that it banned the import of it into the country — meaning, even though it was published in England, Indians weren’t allowed to read it.
Jawaharlal Nehru himself admitted in private that the book was banned not because it was dangerous but because he was afraid of political backlash. He told Menen that India wasn’t ready for this kind of irreverence.
But that’s the thing about bans — they only make books more interesting.
You’d think that a book written 70 years ago wouldn’t still be controversial. But Rama Retold is still banned in India. In a country that has embraced multiple versions of the Ramayana — from Valmiki’s original to Tulsidas’ Ramcharitmanas to countless folk variations — why does Menen’s version remain untouchable?
The answer is simple: it laughs at the idea that sacred stories should never be questioned.
And that’s why Rama Retold is more relevant today than ever. In a world where books, films, and even social media posts can spark violent outrage, Menen reminds us that nothing should be beyond scrutiny. Mythology is not static. It evolves, adapts, and invites conversation. But when a society decides that a story cannot be retold, cannot be questioned, and most of all, cannot be laughed at — that’s when mythology stops being culture and starts becoming dogma.
Menen closes his book by saying:
“There are three things which are real: God, human folly, and laughter. Since the first two pass our comprehension, we must do what we can with the third.”
Menen dared to laugh at a sacred epic — not out of disrespect, but out of curiosity and out of a desire to see it in a new light. And the biggest irony? If Valmiki himself — who wrote the original Ramayana — were alive today, he may even have laughed along with him.
Read the book here.
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