Behind Ramleela: Where Good and Evil Share the Same Space

Ramleela is traditionally a public enactment of the Ramayana, a story built around one of the most familiar moral conflicts in Indian culture: the struggle between good and evil. But behind the stage, that distinction becomes far less absolute.

This series moves away from the spectacle of the performance and into the backstage spaces where Ramleela is prepared, rehearsed and transformed into reality. Here, the divine and the demonic occupy the same corridors. Costumes hang beside one another, performers wait in silence, faces shift between their everyday selves and their mythological identities, and Ram and Ravana become, for a moment, simply performers sharing the same space.

What interests me is this contradiction.

The story on stage is built on separation: Ram represents dharma, righteousness and good, while Ravana represents power, desire and evil. Backstage, however, these opposing worlds coexist without conflict. The same space holds the sacred and the theatrical, devotion and performance, preparation and transformation.

Through these photographs, I wanted to look beyond Ramleela as a spectacle and observe the people and spaces that make it possible. The images explore the thin boundary between character and performer, mythology and reality, good and evil.

Perhaps the most interesting part of Ramleela is not the moment when good defeats evil on stage, but the moments before the curtain rises—when both exist together, quietly waiting for their turn.