A young professor at a reputed University uses a novel method to teach about myths; he uses film stars and their fandom to explain the popularity of Ram or Krishna. This ingenious way of teaching has the power to immediately transport the students to literally live as contemporaries in the age of the mythical heroes. To my mind, this is exactly how history should be taught always. The only caveat in the model is that the teacher must be well read in the myths herself.

Often, we have only a vague idea of Ram or Krishna, unable to discern the differences between them. Furthermore, these myths were created over centuries shaping up with the vagaries of historical forces, carrying with them structures of power, contestations over centrality, cultural hegemony and resistances towards them. Many historians of repute mix up between the Ram of Valmiki and Ram of Tulsidas eschewing the fact that there are as many constructions of Ram as there as Ramayans, which have crossed three hundred in number. Likewise, Krishna myth is largely divided into two sets, one the Sanskrit language texts like the Puranas and the Mahabharata describe him as a hero and a king while in a later text, the Bhagavadgita he becomes a facilitator, and which is also when he becomes the God. It is entirely possible that the Gita was a later appendage to the Mahabharata, because many Upanishadic as well as Bhakti elements from later centuries enter it.  

Krishna, as the lover boy seems to be specifically the invention of Mirabai. However, the 13^th century philosopher, poet and musician, Amir Khusrau introduced erotic love into Divine worship. Khusro wrote bhajans on Ram and close on his heels, Kabir carried Ram to northern India and especially Rajasthan. It appears, and it is true even now that Ram was better known in the eastern valley of the Ganga River system than beyond the Yamuna. But Mirabai, took the Krishna of Sanskrit religious texts and tweaked him into a lover boy, capable of extreme erotic sensualities with unrestrained promiscuity and abandonly adulterous.

Ram, on the other hand, is restrained; known for his sacrifices and abandonment of self-interest. He is exiled just as he is about to inherit the throne, he loses his wife just as he felt well settled in that exile, he kills the greatest foe of the Aryans on earth, namely Ravana and despite that the commoners in his kingdom forced him to give up his wife. Through the ages, Ram’s mutual contradictions between his duties as a king with obligations towards his subjects versus his duties as a husband with commitment to his wife are forever a subject of heated debates. Ram, despite being a staunch monogamist, an exception to the trend of polygamy among men of position, is forever judged as being not man enough. No one, however, judges Krishna, despite his infidelities, debaucheries and misdeeds. He cheats in war, goes back on promises, neglects his lady love, forgets his friend and yet, he does not lose either his sheen or glamour. Both are avatars of Vishnu.

Tagore commented that Ram is God despite being human, while Krishna is human despite being a God. Ram is propelled to Godliness; his worth is that he put his self interest after everybody else’s; this makes him eventually the Maryada Purushottam in Ramcharitmanas. Krishna does not become God despite the copious odes to his heroism in the Puranas and the epic; he becomes God when he become every woman’s lover boy so much so that the men in Vaishnavism imagine themselves as Radha, Krishna’s female consort. Ram is a king, a son, a brother but perhaps never a good husband or father; Krishna is a good friend, a good lover, but never quite anything of worth as a family man. Krishna is loved because of his flaws; Ram is judged despite his perfection.