Page - 21 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 07/02

Playing with Words, Worlds, and Images | 21www.jrfm.eu 2021, 7/2, 15–30 lusiveness and excess needed to be tempered by Devdutt’s logical, analyt- ical, pared-down style. The artwork is more restrained and quite different than the complex jewel palette of Adi Parva and Sauptik. Bornet: Let’s now turn to religion. We are all working in the study of reli- gion and so we were very much interested in your use of religious motifs and mytho logical themes, from the Mahābhārat to the Rāmāyaṇa, Vedic literature etc. Why did you choose these kinds of texts instead of other more secular mytholo gies or motifs? Sometimes it seems as if you use specific religious mo- tifs to tell more universal stories: how do you understand their interaction? Patil: Improvisation is part of the DNA of a living tradition, an oral tra- dition. The details and motifs are meant to be adapted in new times, so long as fidelity to the essence is retained. A storyteller in what A. K. Ra- manujan describes as a pūram setting is meant to have the finger on the pulse of the land: local politics, local calamities and scandals. The aim of telling stories is to offer insight into the human experience, to allay fears and traumas. What interests me about religions is the stories they came Fig. 1: Patil’s visual style: for example Lakshmi in Adi Parva (Patil 2012, 90; printed with permission).