Delhi’s RAM Returns for Its 67th Year, A Timeless Theatre Ritual Connecting Generations

As Delhi's cultural calendar fills with festivals and events to mark the autumn, a familiar ritual begins at Mandi House. Shri Ram Bharatiya Kala Kendra's dance-drama RAM returns for its 67th consecutive year, not with fanfare or grand proclamations, but with the quiet certainty of tradition continuing.

In a city where entertainment options multiply exponentially each year, RAM persists as an anchor—steady, reliable, unchanged in its essential purpose even as the world transforms around it.

Theatre's Living Memory

The production's origins in 1957 reflect a different Delhi, a different India. Sumitra Charat Ram and Ramdhari Singh Dinkar created RAM when television was barely a concept and entertainment meant gathering in physical spaces. Nearly seven decades later, that foundational choice to bring people together around a shared story feels both anachronistic and essential.

"56 years it has been for me, even if you remove 6 out of the 56, I have been here every time. It is almost like my baby,” says director of the play, Shobha Deepak Singh, the chairperson of SBKK, “It is just the first day right now, but I’ll keep on watching it every year. For sixty-seven years, this has been a shared cultural experience that binds generations together. Each season, we strive to preserve its spiritual and artistic core while bringing fresh nuances to the stage.”

Unlike the spontaneous, devotional Ram Leelas that spring up across North India during Navratri—often community-driven and deeply local—RAM occupies a different space. It's professional theatre rooted in folk tradition, accessible to urban audiences while maintaining rural storytelling rhythms. This positioning has allowed it to survive where more rigid forms might have faltered.

Familiar Tales, Changing Times

Vishal Nirman, who has played various roles over ten years, and this time is going to play Dasrath, reflects on the responsibility of the play and that of theatre, "As an artist playing this role or anything else, there is a certain amount of nervousness. This is not just acting; it is also the bhav (emotion) of it. There is nav raas, and there are facial expressions. It is also a one-take show; if it starts, it will end in one flow, no director cuts exist here.”

The intergenerational pull is perhaps RAM's most distinctive characteristic. Manohar Singh, a Delhi resident for thirty years, brings his family annually: "I first saw RAM as a teenager in the 1970s. Now I bring my grandchildren. It feels like a ritual of continuity, a way of passing on what matters. Unlike a film, here you feel the energy of the performers, the sound of the props or instruments that they use, and the movement of the costumes with the wind. It’s immersive in a way no screen can replicate."

But this familiarity also raises questions about theatre's role in contemporary culture. In an entertainment landscape dominated by instant gratification and personalised content, RAM offers something increasingly rare: a collective, ritualistic experience that unfolds at its own pace. Yet the question persists: in an era of streaming platforms and immersive digital experiences, what keeps people returning to a two-and-a-half-hour outdoor performance of a story they already know?

Mohana, a first-time attendee from Noida who has come around with her family, offers one perspective: "Everything else changes so quickly. Maybe there's something reassuring about a story that doesn't change, performed the same way for decades."

Theatre's Stubborn Persistence

RAM's relationship to contemporary theatre is complicated. It's neither cutting-edge nor nostalgic, neither experimental nor purely traditional. Instead, it occupies a middle ground that many theatrical forms struggle to maintain—relevant without being trendy, accessible without being simplified.

Dipesh Divakar, a regular for two decades, sees this persistence differently: "It's not about whether theatre stays popular. Some things exist because they serve a purpose beyond fashion. People need rituals, need ways to mark time and meaning."

When asked about whether plays like RAM or other Ram Leelas, which are majorly performed as live theatre, help revive the form or allow it to gain popularity, Vishal reflects, “Ram Leelas not only give theatre a push as an art form but also give jobs to many artists, it provides a stage, it provides a financial backup.”

As RAM prepares for another season, its survival seems less a triumph of marketing than an acknowledgment of cultural necessity. In a city constantly reinventing itself, some things anchor us to deeper currents. The production continues not because it's extraordinary, but because it's become ordinary—part of Delhi's autumn rhythm, as reliable as seasonal change itself.

Whether this represents theatre's vitality or its retreat into safe spaces remains an open question, one RAM seems content to let others answer.