Movies Watched By Ramana Maharshi

1-11-1946

Mrs. Taleyarkhan took a lot of pains and arranged for ‘Harischandra’ a Tamil film to be shown to Bhagavan in the dining hall this night. The show could not be started before 9-30 p.m. and so Bhagavan had to keep awake till 12-30. But Bhagavan sat through it all and I believe he enjoyed it.

2-11-46

Bhagavan looked up Harischandra’s story in Tamil and said, “They had abridged the story very much at one place. They did not show how Chandramathi was suspected of
having killed the king’s son and was sentenced to death for that supposed murder of hers.” In the afternoon, Bhagavan was looking into the life of Pundarika in Bhakta Vijayam;the Tamil film ‘Bhakta Pundarika’ was going to be shown this night to him. There is a lot of difference between the story in the book and the film version.

3-11-46

This night Bhagavan was shown a Hindi film ‘Karna’.

5-11-46

This night the film ‘Mira Bai’ was shown to Bhagavan.

Bhagavan is having a very bad cold.When somebody said, “Probably sitting late last night to see the film has affected Bhagavan’s health,” he said. “No. No. I sat there as I sit here. Part of the time, I was sleeping there. Further, they themselves give so many intervals. Whenever the reel was not moving, I closed my eyes. That gives me sufficient rest. Even if I sit for the whole night like that, it would make no difference to me.”

This movie business became stronger, when someone came to Asramam and said that he would exhibit many more movies. Someone stopped it, because, crowds started pouring from the town late night to watch these movies and this caused great annyoance to inmates. Bhagavan Ramana as usual kept quiet,without any opinion.

So also was the case,who came to picturise the activities in the Hall, bringing an old type movie camera.Some one else came to record His teachings, with gramaphone players. These were not permitted.

Source: DAY BY DAY WITH BHAGAVAN By From the Diary of A. DEVARAJA MUDALIAR