Mere rom rom me tu hai..

This dialogue may sound very familiar to people who were in full attendance for the pro-shows in Saarang. It is from the ever enchating Shreya Ghoshal number Mere Dholna from Bhool Bhulaiya. The song, is a beautiful medley of a few ragas, varying from Harikambodhi, a bit of Kaapi, a bit of Neela( a raga I found on a bit of googling, though I guess it is not a widely heard raga) in the male interlude of Sreekumar, which is a slight moved reversal of Hindolam. A superb song, quite not matched in the video segment, where Vidya Balan's performance is easily outdone by Shobana or Soundarya, or even Jyothika for that matter. The song was an eternal favourite with light music performers in Saarang 2010. It was performed atleast 4 times, by different teams. Everything was hunky-dory. One thing which stood out for me though, was the line "Mere Rom Rom me tu hai!"

Literally translating to "My every pore has you", the line is a straight lift from Tulasidas' Ramayan. In Tulasidas' Ramayan, there is this portion, post the crowning of Rama as the king of Ayodhya, where Sita wishes to gift every ally of their's in the war front with something. In this aspect, she gifts all the vanaras with necklaces. There is this beautiful story here into which I'd like to diverge into for a small while. She gifts Vibhishana with the ancestral diety of the SuryaVamsa, the idol of Sri Ranganatha! Ya, you read me right. It was an idol, which is said to have its place in Brahma loka, but by immense penance, Dasharatha is said to have won over Brahma and his will to keep the Ranganatha. So, Dasharatha had brought it to Ayodhya. Now, when Sita presents it to him, she warns him against keeping the statue down at any place in the path of return to Lanka, lest it get stuck to the ground there and stay there. When passing by south India, Vibhishana is unable to control his ablutions, and finds a small Brahmin boy nearby, gives his idol to him, asks him not to keep it in the ground, and goes. On seeing Vibhishana coming back, the boy keeps the statue down, and starts running away from Vibhishana. A furious Vibhishana gives chase and the boy goes up a hill and sits down. Vibhishana chases him down and gives him a furious knock on his head. The boy turns into Vinayaka and sends Vibhishana reeling in shock. Even today, the idol is found as Sri Ranganatha Swamy in Srirangam, while the hill-top Vinayaka is the Utchi Pillaiyar in Trichy. As a mark of Vibhishana's knock, you can observe even today a small hollow portion in the back of Ganesha's head in that temple.

Coming back to the original point of our discussion, when Sita offers her own precious necklace of multiple diamonds to Hanuman, Hanuman dismantles the necklace and looks at it diamond by diamond, and throws it away disappointed. All the courtiers, nobles, Bharatha, Shatrugna, Lakshmana, Sita and even Rama are shocked at Hanuman's behaviour. The common consensus arrived to is that a vanara does not know the worth of diamonds. Then a sobbing Hanuman says they were trying to differentiate him from Sita and Rama by giving him gifts, and in a show of his affection of Ram and Sita, tears open his chest and to the shock of everyone around, they see Rama and Sita in there. It is here he proclaims, "Mere Rom Rom me Raam hai!"

I'm amazed at the fact that such beautiful lines were rightly picked out, and made to seem so much in context in the Mere Dholna song. It's a wonderful song, and all of you must listen to it. :)